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Chapter Text

Our story begins in the rich city of Exegol. The largest and most beautiful city in the country, as many would say. It is a place where people live and prosper peacefully under the watchful eye of Notre Dame, a place of worship that towers over the city before it, as a king would rule over his kingdom.

Within that elegant tower, lived the forever obscured Sheev Palpatine, a man who had risen from the structure of the church itself, or so people assumed, seeing as no one ever laid eyes on him. But those in the church began to worship the man as a savior. It is said that he was sent here as God’s prophet, someone who knows His message and will relay it only to those who are loyal to him and the church.

There are some who were immediately suspicious of this mysterious man who seemed to take over the church, but none said as much. No one had ever questioned the authority of the church. Notre Dame was their only place of worship. A place of hope. A place that represented an answer to what lies beyond this troubling Earth.

In the year 1482, two young students attended the church regularly, as only the boys from the wealthiest families did. But these two were rather irregular compared to the others.

Armitage Hux was taken in as an orphan off the streets by the graciousness of Notre Dame. Therefore, from a young age, the boy always saw the church and it’s prophet as the saviors sent to him by God. He would forever be in their debt and service.

Ben Solo was the second of the two students. Little was known of his family, apart from that they sent him to Notre Dame as a young child to learn the ways of the church and train to become a missionary.

Hux was a bit older than the Solo boy, but instantly recognized his loneliness. Notre Dame was a place one could easily feel overwhelmed by as a child, especially one sent away from their family. And after spending some time with him, anyone could see that Ben felt abandoned. Therefore, Hux took it upon himself to act as an older brother to the boy in an attempt to help him to see that he did indeed have a purpose here, and this holy place was something to be worshipped and tirelessly tended to.

As the two reached manhood, Hux became the prodigal son of the church. He dedicated himself to his studies and the orders of the church in every moment of his time there, until he was eventually granted audience with Palpatine, something only the highest ranking of priests would receive. He was bestowed with an advancement from his studies and an honorable title as an apprentice to the Archdeacon of Notre Dame.

Ben on the other hand did not ascend in such a manner.

The boy grew defiant as years passed, taking on a wishful ideal to pursue things outside the church, outside Exegol, to focus on his own journey rather than God’s will. He would run away, would ignore the rules and regulations given to him, neglect his studies and his duties to the church.

Eventually, the Archdeacon had no choice but to expel Ben Solo from Notre Dame on account of his increasingly wild and alarming behavior.

Though Hux was horrified at this revelation, Solo seemed to care very little, and left immediately in pursuit of the fulfillment he felt he was needing desperately, somewhere deep in his soul. Hux even tried to vouch on his behalf to keep him at the church, his home for so many years now, but the Archdeacon would hear none of it, and it seemed that Ben didn’t want the opportunity anyhow.

More time passed, and Hux continued to progress much faster than most through rank after rank in the church. He impressed and surprised everyone who monitored him, and one day, his years of hard work finally came to fruition when Palpatine granted him the title of Archdeacon, the youngest in all of Notre Dame’s history. But no one dared question the prophet’s decision.

Hux felt no worry for the multiple tasks and responsibilities that would now fall onto him. But his first order of business with his new power, was to find Ben Solo.

It turned out to be quite a shameful mission to seek out the long missing Solo, and Hux found himself concealing his identity most persistently as he journeyed to a land far from Exegol, a village near the ocean called Ahch-To that did not look as if it had treated Solo well.

Hux was shocked to see the young man’s ravished state when he found him in a lone shack that looked like it had done very little to shield its inhabitant from the outside elements.

He had come to look for his family, Solo told him. He had searched relentlessly for months and months, until his path led him here, an unforeseen dead end. Now, he had been left here with nothing but a most painful emptiness that eats away at his heart.

Hux was then horrified, backing away from the desperate man, thinking him to be corrupted by sin.

“Then it is to be God’s judgement on you,” Hux spoke to him, his eyes wide with anger and disbelief. “You know the law. Your wickedness will not go unpunished.”

Perhaps he had expected the man to begin pleading with him, begging for forgiveness, begging to be saved, to be redeemed of his immoral and foolish wishes to ignore his calling and go off to this forsaken place.

But all Solo did was continue to lie there before him, looking like a beaten down, wounded animal.

It was in looking at him like this, that Hux’s resolve came.

“But it does not have to be so,” he spoke more consolingly now, stepping closer to the young man again. “I can take you back. You can be saved still.”

“How?” Ben had asked, his haunted and anguished eyes gazing up at his old acquaintance, a man he would have called brother, years ago.

“Come back with me,” Hux urged. “Notre Dame and Palpatine’s wisdom are the only comforts you will ever need.”

“They won’t let me back,” Ben argued as he shivered against the cold, his torn and ravaged clothing doing nothing to assist against the biting weather. “I was banished from the church.”

At this, Hux had a glint of a smile, recalling his recently awarded position.

“I have been granted leadership of Notre Dame,” he told his former companion. “I am second only to the prophet himself. It is well within my authority to have you back.”

Ben had gone quiet, and his eyes seemed to search somewhere within his mind to try and find an answer, a solution to what he should do.

“Return to Notre Dame,” Hux told him again, “and I will see to it that your body and soul are cleansed and healed of your sin. It will be as if these past years of torment you have been through never happened. I can take you to see the prophet. With his blessing, you could be made into a prized asset.”

Ben had felt he had little time to think upon the matter. But he also felt he had little choice. It was clear that his ambition had landed him in a state of greater nothingness than he had started out with. He had nothing to his name, nowhere to go, no one that cared whether he lived or died.

No one except Hux.

So he agreed to go.

The two journeyed back to Exegol, back to Notre Dame, where Solo was brought before Palpatine to begin the duty of cleansing his soul.

As he knelt before the renowned prophet, surrounded by the tall dark stone walls of the secret temple he keeps himself in, Ben found himself suddenly fearful. The room itself was intimidating without the dark cloaked man sitting on the throne at the head of it, unseen eyes peering out at him from under the black hood.

“Young Solo,” Palpatine spoke to him, his voice carrying a gentle, yet commanding timbre, textured in the way that Ben could feel it creeping over him, invading his mind and demanding attention. “Hux tells me you wish to be saved from your sinful pursuits and your dishonorable aspirations.”

“Yes,” Ben answered, keeping his eyes on the ground, feeling unsure if he was permitted to look at him or not.

Palpatine seemed to sit in contemplation, a charged silence buzzing through the empty air.

“You will have a chance to redeem yourself, Ben Solo,” he finally had judged, his long, bony fingers tapping gently against the armrests of the dark colored throne. “You will be forgiven in my eyes and in God’s if you do as I advise.”

Ben simply kept his head bowed and awaited his verdict.

“If you want your soul to be completely cleansed, you must renounce your past identity. You will forsake everything you have ever desired. You will let Ben Solo die here in this room, in my presence.”

Ben had been startled, to say the least. But one glance back towards the doorway, where Hux was still standing, giving him an encouraging nod, and Ben was prepared to accept his task.

From that day on, he is rigorously trained and schooled in the ways of the new church. Not the traditional ways. The new rule of Notre Dame, the rule that Palpatine determined is ready to take hold, the rule that tightens the command of the church, spreading it far and wide across the land so that they may shelter others from the evils in the world. That is how Hux teaches it to the others in the church.

Ben is taught to fight, to be a warrior for the church. His skills strengthen as time goes on, until he becomes unmatched by any other. It is then that he is given the name Kylo Ren.

The name will soon send chills down any citizen’s spine, as the faceless killer dressed all in black, with a grotesque mask concealing his features, and the long, razor edged sword crafted by his own hands is used to cut down any threats or opposition to the church’s rule.

Little of the man that used to be is left in the heart of the wretched killer that stalks the city of Exegol, like a hungry predator eager to seek its traitorous prey.

Hux oversees Kylo’s transformation, each day feeling the unyielding persistence of eyes upon him, eyes from somewhere unseen, watching him. Judging him.

But he knew the sensation was simply an over exaggerated anxiety. This was right. Ben Solo was a lost and pathetic thing, something no one could care for, something no one would waste such precious time on. But Kylo Ren is someone to be feared and recognized. Kylo Ren has a purpose, to fight for Notre Dame and see her prosper until she reigns over all.

To have turned Ben Solo into Kylo Ren, to train him to think with a mind similar to Hux’s own was, in his opinion, a blessed mercy.

Chapter Text

Finn is alone as he walks the empty streets of Exegol, nothing but the starlight sparkling down upon the quiet city that somehow seems so much smaller than in the daylight when it is being overrun by citizens and guards patrolling at every corner.

But what he stares at the most, what anyone would stare at the most, given it’s towering domain, is the glorious castle of Notre Dame.

He has always preferred to view it like this, alone and at night, when it feels the whole world has dropped away, and he is the last man left on the Earth. Maybe because, when everything is at peace like this, he can pretend that everything is as it once was.

The beauty of Notre Dame has always struck him with its radiance, not only with all it represents, but the love and devotion with which it was built. He could never fail to notice the art in almost everything he sees, and nowadays, the only thing he can really look at is the buildings that still stand around him.

The old times of freedom and joy seem so far away now, such a distant memory, that Finn is sometimes afraid it was always just a fantasy. It makes him even more somber to know that a fantasy is exactly what freedom is to most people now.

It was many years ago when Finn was a small child living on the outskirts of Exegol, where freedom and love were able to reign free here. Painters, poets, sculptors, all were able to create as they pleased, share their products of dedication with the world.

But the world seems to have been shrinking for a long time, or at least ever since the leaders of the church began to banish any form of art or free expression, or anything they deemed to be harmful toward God or the prophet. The number of outlawed practices grew and grew, until now, there is practically nothing left.

Finn was so young when the corruption had started, but even he could tell that their city seemed to be moving backward. He had hoped to at least get away from the city once he was old enough, but that endeavor was very soon extinguished once Notre Dame began expanding its rule far beyond Exegol, and now, years later, it seems as if the archdeacon is announcing the attainment of a new land every day.

He almost laughs to himself now as he quietly watches the giant tower of the church, seeing tiny dots of yellow light through various windows.

Something built with so much love, now turned into a weapon of deceit and power. If it isn’t a symbol of what has happened over the past twenty or so years, he does not know what is.

But there is still hope. There is a hope that Finn personally sees to everyday. A hope that has become his entire life.

Beneath the stone streets of the city, under his very feet, there is an underground series of tunnels and dug out chambers that house the Resistance. An entire society of people fighting endlessly to obliterate the oppression of the church and restore its former glory.

Leaning against a nearby post, Finn speaks in a hushed tone to the many sleeping citizens of Exegol who are unbeknownst of his presence or his voice.

“It will not be like this forever,” he swears, his eyes staring defiantly at the church. “We will continue to fight and we will rise greater and greater each day, until we are finally free.”

The Court of Miracles is mostly dark and silent when Finn returns. Everyone tries to get as much rest as they can, seeing as they spend most of their time strategizing, obtaining supplies, and recruiting as discreetly as they can.

The nickname had been given to the Resistance base by the various gypsies that had joined the cause early on. The Resistance was founded, reasonably so, by the people who have been cast out entirely by the new rule of the church. Therein lies the reason it is quite difficult to form a worthy army with only Exegol’s poorest and most downtrodden subjects. In fact, the only person coming from a well-off family in the Resistance, and perhaps the entire reason the movement has survived so long in the first place, is Leia Organa.

Finn steps into the main meeting room, where candles are still lit and one person still stands over the various maps and lists scattered about the large table.

Leia Organa may be the official leader of the Resistance, but Poe Dameron is certainly the face of it. He is perhaps the most passionate member, though that isn’t always a good thing. He is always the last one out of a meeting, sometimes staying up all throughout the night, as if he thinks an answer will somehow present itself to him and him alone in the early hours of the morning.

The man doesn’t even raise his head or look at all startled when Finn walks into the room and shuts the door behind him.

“You were out again,” he speaks without moving from his position, his hands gripped on the edges of the table, his eyes pouring over the papers in front of him.

“I like walking at night,” Finn replies as he walks casually closer to the large table that looks as if it stretches miles long across. “It feels less stressful than walking about in the day.”

“It’s also more dangerous,” Poe tells him, his eyes finally tipping up from the table ever so slightly to stare narrowly at Finn. “Any one of the guards, or Kylo Ren himself could be stalking the streets after sundown.”

As if in response, the ceiling above them creaks slightly, and the both of them lift their gaze to stare at the rocky underground that serves as their roof. The various cracks and creases cast flickering shadows, as they always do, from the blinking flames of the candles lighting the meeting room.

“I can’t shut myself in here and only go out when we’re looking for recruits,” Finn speaks, the first to look away from the precarious ceiling. “I have to have something resembling a life of my own.”

“That’s why we’re doing this,” Poe answers back as he looks back down at the maps. “So everyone can have a life of their own.”

Finn can hear the exhaustion and dehydration in his voice, and it makes his heart ache, as it does every night.

“Maybe we should go to bed,” he suggests, already knowing his lover will ignore the recommendation. “You’ve skipped supper again, haven’t you?”

“We’re close,” he nods to himself, giving Finn’s words no response, as expected. “We nearly have the amount of people to stage an attack. We’ve saved up enough supplies, we have our weapons…”

One of his hands moves to collide against the table, atop one of the maps as a tired grin spreads across his face.

“All we have to do is convince Leia,” Poe nods, finally turning his head up to fully look at Finn, who has begun walking along the side of the table towards him. “If we continue this fight, we can win. They’ll never see us coming, at least not like this.”

Finn nods, feeling too tired to respond. He can’t count the amount of times he’s given Poe a mindless word of agreement or encouragement. He’s realized by now that the man doesn’t really need it. He could convince an entire colony of people to do whatever he wanted. The way he speaks, the way he moves, even the way he stands all has something that makes people listen.

Poe had been the one, years ago, that convinced Finn they should join the Resistance in the first place.

“I’m a bit tired,” Finn tells him, feeling something in him want to reach out once Poe turns back to what he had been studying. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”

“Later,” Poe answers, though his voice sounds as if his mind is miles away from where Finn’s is.

Finn just nods, giving Poe one last hopeful look, and then turning and walking back towards the door, knowing that arguing is hopeless.

As he walks through the mostly dark tunnels toward the bunks, Finn can’t help but feel the tiny spark of anger that has been igniting through him every so often lately.

Poe’s passion and courage are beautiful things. They are part of what made him fall in love with him. And they are two things the Resistance needs, especially now when hope seems to be dwindling.

But it has been so long now that Finn has longed for Poe to be passionate with him. He wants the man he loves to look at him, to touch him, to do something that will show any kind of a sign he still loves him as he did in the first three years they spent together, living in Finn’s sorry excuse of a home, a rented out room at an Inn that had felt like a haven, despite it’s smallness when it had been the two of them living in it together, spending countless hours simply being together, as if there couldn’t be anyone else in the world.

But ever since joining this cause, it seems like everyday, slowly but surely, Poe’s only love has been for the Resistance. He treats it with the same intense adoration he had showered upon Finn, once upon a time. And Finn finds himself jealous at times like tonight, when all he wants is the simple relief to be held in someone’s arms after a long day.

But it seems as if tonight, once again, Finn will be spending the night in a cold and empty bed, while Poe spends his night trying to become the hero of Exegol.

Chapter Text

The meeting room is practically filled to the brim the next morning, a harsh contrast to how it had looked last night.

Leia Organa now stands where Poe had stood the night before, at the head of the table, with hundreds of people scattered all around her, a mess of noise and indistinguishable arguments being exchanged back and forth.

She has always been a stoic woman, soft spoken but with much wisdom in her words. And always with a certain sadness in her eyes that has always struck something in Finn’s chest whenever he looks at her. Everyone knows she came from a rich family lineage, but as far as anyone knows, she is the last of her name, without any husband or children of her own.

“We have had enough of this treachery!” a gypsy man standing near Finn exclaims, his fist coming down hard on the table. “We must do more than gather recruits and supplies. If we remain like this, we will die out before having our chance of victory.”

“He’s right,” a younger man from across the table nods in agreement. “Our missions continue to fail because we do not put enough into them. The church is onto us, more and more of our members are captured and executed everyday, along with many other innocent people just trying to make their way in life. We can not let this go on any longer.”

“We are not the only ones living in poverty!” an elderly woman cries out, the bracelets on her wrist jangling as she raises her arm in defiance. “Everyday I see more and more of my people on the streets, banished from a humane life, while the church takes more and more money for itself, it’s armies and the rich lords that support them!”

“I know how you all feel,” Poe announces loudly, instantly cutting off most outside conversation with his commanding tone. “Believe me, the moment we have enough weapons to defend ourselves against the church’s opposition, we will be ready to discuss an attack.”

Finn watches Leia’s expression at this statement, seeing her eyes grow wider with worry, especially when the majority of the table seems encouraged by Poe’s statement.

“These useless side missions are getting us nowhere,” the gypsy man speaks again. “I say it’s about time we attack at the heart of the matter right this instant. Notre Dame herself.”

Hearing it said outright like this sends half the table into a frenzy.

“That is a horrid idea!” a young woman protests. “Notre Dame is a sacred place. It is the people whose hands it has fallen into that are corrupt.”

“If there is no other way, we may not have a choice,” Poe answers her.

Everyone in the Resistance knows Poe is not a God fearing man. In fact, Finn thinks, the man may be unfearing of anything. Of course, the lot of gypsies that make up a good part of the Resistance have no belief in the Catholic faith, mostly because they were never taught anything about it.

There are some that are bothered by Poe’s disbelief, but never make any verbal protest. Finn wonders himself if he should question that the man he loves does not share his religion. But in truth, he never had a reason to be bothered by it.

“Attacking Notre Dame would be sacrilegious,” another young man calls out. “To lay weapons onto a house of God…”

“We don’t want to lay weapons anywhere.”

The room goes silent and all heads turn toward the head of the table. Leia only lends her voice when she has an important point to make or when she’s answering someone else’s point, so when her voice rings out amid a meeting, everyone knows to pay sharp attention.

“Our goal is not to win our freedom through a grand battle,” she continues, turning her head slowly about the room, giving the illusion that she is fixing her attentive gaze on each and every person at the table. “There has been too much bloodshed already, as has been discussed moments ago. An attack on the church will either lead to a civil war, or an annihilation. Either way, we will be worse off than we are now, or completely wiped out.”

It’s quiet as everyone considers her words. Finn finds he can’t disagree.

“So you don’t think attacking Notre Dame can ever be an option,” Poe confirms, though his tone implies a questioning as if he is pushing for a slightly less straight answer.

Leia turns to give him a look slightly akin to what one would give a child that has been pestering his parents with full knowledge of what they’re doing.

“I understand a lot of you may feel that an attack will soon be our only chance at freedom,” she answers. “But I argue that we can find another way, an option that won’t involve the loss of what little recruits we have now.”

Those words are enough to make the debate in the room hesitant enough to not come to a definite conclusion this morning. As of now, they will go along their normal routine and leave the question of whether or not to launch war on Notre Dame for another day.

Assignments are given out next, and they are the same as usual. Individuals are selected to travel out to nearby lands to either gather supplies or recruit. Finn actually finds himself drifting off somewhere in his own mind, replaying Poe and Leia’s arguments in his head, confused on who to side with and how to give an opinion of his own. But his attention snaps back to Earth when he hears his name called next.

“You are being asked to travel quite a ways for your next assignment,” Kaydel Connix, one of the people doling out the tasks tells him, her eyebrows raising a bit as she looks down at the scroll in her hands. “You’re to go to the deserts of Jakku at the end of the week and report back on the basics. If you can find supporters, that would be fantastic, though I don’t imagine there will be many who are willing.”

Finn is sure of that statement. He’s never been to Jakku, but he’s heard all about the kinds of people that dwell there. Self serving junk dealers, scavengers, and thieves of all kinds that for some reason chose to inhabit a dry, dead desert as their home.

Finn does not care for hot weather.

“How am I to get there?” he asks as people step all around him to get where they need to go.

Something like a smirk comes across Kaydel’s face as she looks up from her scroll at him.

“The church officials are journeying there in two days time, according to our spies,” she tells him, and the realization of the weight of this mission begins to make Finn a bit dizzy. “You’ve got all the good ones too. Kylo Ren, the head ministers, the archdeacon, Captain Pryde… I’d start counting your lucky stars if I were you.”

He groans in his head, but simply gives Kaydel a nod and an expression he hopes looks as neutral as he imagines it in his head.

It will not be his first time stowing away on the church’s transportation. But the task is daunting every time, even more so with so many important people he will have to hide himself from. Ultimately, it’s all the same of course. These people’s fancy titles don’t make them able to magically sense when a Resistance fighter has stowed away upon their carriage, though Kylo Ren he is not so sure of.

Anyone’s first instinct would be to immediately start planning what they are going to do, what their method will be, making a list of everything they would need to gather before this dangerous mission. But as Kaydel walks off, the only thing on Finn’s mind is Poe.

He looks over across the room, to where Poe is helping handing out assignments, his eyes focused, his mouth moving quickly, assigning people with haste and efficiency.

He wants to tell him what he was just assigned, how nervous but unexplainably excited he is, the only thing weighing on his heart being the slight possibility that he will never see him again, knowing full well that getting caught will mean a very rapid sentencing and execution.

But there seemed to be no room for extra stress like that in Poe’s mind. So for now, Finn steps silently out of the meeting room, on to perform his responsibilities, just what Poe would want him to do.

There seems little use in focusing on anything more emotional these days.

* * *

The meeting in Hux’s private office takes place late at night, after everything has been properly seen to and concluded. There was a journey to be planned, one that would take much time that any of the officials would say could be better served elsewhere, but one that is of the utmost importance to the goal of Notre Dame’s reign.

Kylo Ren stands toward the back of the small room while the two ministers stand before Hux’s desk, trying not to turn and sneak a glance at the towering, masked man hovering by the heavy wooden door.

Kylo isn’t unknowing of the uncomfortable and fearful aura that he can bring over any room. It is what has kept the citizens of Exegol in line, and why there have been no open attacks on the church, since he has cut down any man that has tried.

“Exegol is ripe with rebellious citizens,” Hux speaks to the two men in front of him, his hands clasped behind his back. “But there is another breed we must seek to exterminate.”

He turns to walk towards the long glass window behind his desk that looks out over a small portion of the streets outside the front of the church.

“There are loathsome and sinful gypsies and scavengers that have been taking up more and more of this town’s population,” he continues as he surveys the darkened streets. “They live among us, in dark corners of the streets, stealing from our pastors and our benefactors. The prophet seems to have little concern over them, but I do.”

He turns back to face the rest of the room.

“If we do not stop their spread, their sinful lifestyle could infect our entire city. And you will find once we enter Jakku, that the place has become like a haven for these fiends. Therefore, we must be meticulous in our pursuit of justice. We are going there to snuff out any support of the Resistance, but also making sure there is nothing but unquestioning dependency on the church.”

“Our church?” one of the minister's questions. “Have they even heard of us that far out in the desert regions?”

“If they haven't, they soon will,” Hux answers unflinchingly. “They will either choose to align with us, or they can wither and die out on their own. Whilst there, we will make sure of what regions could be possible threats and need containing, and which ones will parish.”

The ministers nod in agreement, and after all plans are finalized, they are excused.

Kylo steps away from the door just enough to let it open, but his proximity is obviously still far too close for the two men not to rush out with their heads bowed, looking as if they are afraid the masked man might whip out his sword and decapitate them both in one swing.

“Ren,” Hux acknowledges with a tone of familiarity after the door closes and the two are left alone. “Thank you for your patience.”

Kylo merely gives a slight nod as he walks slowly forward, his leather clad hands balled into fists as always as he awaits Hux’s assignment.

“In Jakku, things will go along much as they did in Alderaan and Dantooine,” he tells him. “We are surveying the lands for any threats. You know how dangerous even one rebel is to this empire, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Kylo replies, his voice coming out in a disturbing, mechanical timbre through the mask. A voice used to intimidate and horrify.

“You must continue to do as you have,” Hux commands, his tone sharp and his eyes brimmed with seriousness. “You must take down any threat towards us or the church. Anyone who speaks poorly of the prophet, anyone who verbally disgraces God or damages the faith. I am counting on you to bring them to justice, do you understand?”

“Yes,” Kylo answers again.

“Good,” Hux nods appreciatively. “I know you will not fail us.”

He won’t. He never has. He can remember each and every civilian he has brought to justice throughout his life. Every outspoken writer, every defiant leader, every would-be assassin or profane artist. Anyone he was ordered to cut down, he would without question. Anything to protect Notre Dame, his home. His only family.

The memory of whatever life he had before is very distant. It almost doesn’t exist anymore. Kylo would like to keep it that way. Whatever identity he had before, whatever poor excuse for a life that came before finding salvation in Notre Dame, had been one of no purpose.

His life has a meaning now. Hux gives him a never ending objective, and he will spend the rest of his life fulfilling it.

Chapter Text

Finn is almost surprised when he pulls off his stowaway mission with relative ease. It’s not as if he had been expecting to get caught, but this particular task was something that could even make someone like Poe Dameron nervous.

But all that had to be done was check in with the other Resistance spies to find out when and where the carriage would be leaving, scope out the spot for himself and figure out where he would have to hide and when the perfect time to jump into the bottom holder of the carriage without anyone seeing him would be.

And on the morning the church officials are leaving for Jakku, he does just that, pulling off the intimidating feat without any of them, even the Captain and Kylo Ren, ever suspecting a thing.

The journey itself isn’t even too bad. The road is surprisingly smooth, and Finn even finds himself beginning to relax in his cramped hiding space, despite the rather precarious squeaking all around him that suggests the small compartment could give way at any moment and send him tumbling onto the road, and the wheels to the carriage crushing him shortly after, leaving him a crumpled up mess to be found by some passing traveler in a few months.

Thankfully, that doesn’t happen.

Things do start becoming uncomfortable once the cool weather begins to harden into the hot, gritty, unforgiving heat that feels as if it is curling its sweat covered palms over every inch of his body. The heavy, slightly itching cloak he has to wear to disguise himself does not help in any way.

The ride also gets more rough once they hit the sand, and he has to do his best to cover his face when grains of it start to flick up into his eyes and mouth.

He’s relieved at first when the carriage stops and he can relax again, but then his heart nearly leaps out of his chest when he realizes he has to roll out from under the carriage before anyone gets out and starts unloading the luggage.

He makes it by the skin if his teeth, and he is willing to bet that Kylo Ren is watching him suspiciously as he walks as quickly as he can away from the carriage, but it isn’t long until he can join in the crowd of people milling about the nearby market, effectively keeping him hidden from view.

It also doesn’t take long for him to realize that there will surely be little to no people here willing to support the Resistance, if they’ve even heard about it.

Finn has not traveled this far out from Exegol before, but it is not as if Jakku is on the other side of the world. However, from the looks of the ratty, junky, rodent infested marketplace, it seems these people are far from worried about whatever is going on in a city like Exegol.

It takes him some time milling about Niima Outpost, the name of this godforsaken town, before he is even confident enough to speak to one of the locals. And once he does, he wishes he hadn’t.

“You look me in the eye again and I’ll rip yer tongue out, got it?” the elderly woman spits at him after he had hardly gotten the word ‘hello’ out of his mouth.

He gives her a quick nod and scurries off as quickly as he can.

Finn spends hours walking about the mangy town, dodging out of the way of the disgruntled looking church officials whenever they walk past, looking as if they are also surveying the undesirable scene with the same disgust he is feeling.

He is at least glad to see they seem to be suffering in the heat as well.

One aspect he left out in his planning, something that probably should have been near the top of the list, was water. He had, perhaps foolishly assumed there would be water ready and available for anyone, especially in a desert village, but there seems to be none. And from the looks people give him when he walks up to anything possibly resembling water are enough to send him walking in the opposite direction.

He wonders if he will even survive this mission to make it back and report that the climate and the conditions of this place give him little hope that there is anyone willing to give the mere thought of revolution the time of day.

* * *

The trek through Niima Outpost is rough and unrewarding as far as Kylo is concerned. Perhaps it’s the bothersome weather or the fact that the place seems to be infested with what Hux calls godless beings, or maybe he is just strangely exhausted today. Whatever it is, it leaves him drained and dissatisfied by the end of the day, when Hux and the other ministers have finished speaking with the town leaders, or what could crudely be called the town leaders.

As they all head to the establishment set up for them to sleep at, a ways away from the town, Kylo wonders if they will be done here sooner than expected. It is clear this puny, desolate town is not somewhere the church needs to worry about a rebellion rising, and this is supposedly one of the largest towns in the entire desert, out of the handful that there are in this lifeless place.

Even the cot they give him to sleep on is far too small and hard as a rock, but he assumes the more comfortable bedding would be given to Hux and the ministers.

Still, it leaves him restless and quite unwilling to attempt to sleep. Not that he can ever sleep in a strange place when they go on missions such as these anyway.

Making sure no one is still lingering outside the sleeping quarters, he snakes out quietly from his room, hoping his dark clothes will keep him shielded against the night.

He’s not sure why he’s afraid that someone will see him. Is it against the rules for him to go out on his own without informing Hux? He was never told he couldn’t go anywhere on his own in a foreign place, but… something about it feels like he’s doing something dishonorable.

That may be why he chooses not to bring his mask with him. It also feels wrong, being outside the walls of his own chambers with his face exposed. Every now and then back home, he would step out on the balcony, walk along the rooftops where he is sure no one can see him and let his face feel the brisk air, get an untainted view of the city, taste the vague aroma of whatever baked goods were made that day still wafting through the air.

It makes him feel different. Peaceful. He’s not sure why he does it. He’s even less sure of why he does it tonight.

It’s so strange, even though most everything before him is an empty desert, the night time bringing the blessing of a small breeze through the warmed air.

The silence does wonders to calm his exhausted mind, and he finds himself almost hypnotized as he watches his boots tread through the sand walking closer and closer towards the half lit town that sounds much quieter than it had in the day.

The market seems closed down, the only place filled with people being some sort of town square, or at least what passes for one in Niima Outpost, that seems to have been decorated with what shabby decorations the citizens seemed to have scrapped together. There is some kind of stage in the center of the square that everyone gathers around, watching intently as a man on the platform chants something out to the crowd.

Kylo is sure to stay in the shadows, climbing atop a small structure until he is nestled safely out of view, his line of sight lined up perfectly with the stage, where he can see that the man is calling out to the crowd while standing before a crystal ball.

It is now that Kylo realizes this is some sort of gypsy show.

His heart jolts, and he wonders if he should go immediately back and tell Hux. This is exactly what they had been looking for, hadn’t they?

But he is frozen, his mouth slightly agape in shock as he watches this entire gathering of these sinful creatures Hux had described. When he had pictured them in his head, he had thought they would be discreet, scattered about, ruthless beings that would try weaseling their way through town, stealing everything in sight.

But here they all are, right out in the open, and no one in this town seems to be bothered in the slightest.

The man finishes whatever chant he had been giving, and everyone applauds and cheers, while he steps off the stage, and a tall man steps out, dressed in colorful cloth that stands out sharply against the black sky surrounding the square and the flames from the torches they’ve set up about the dais.

“And now, my friends!” the man announces in a lavish voice that sounds much like one a performer would have. “It is time for the most enchanting dancer in Jakku, to tell you an epic tale of living life in the desert sands, but dreaming of flying among the stars!”

A murmur ripples through the crowd, while Kylo remains frozen in his hiding place, unbelieving to what he is witnessing. Any form of theater had been abolished long ago in Exegol, in fear that such things would create platforms for citizens to spread hate and lies about the church, but this doesn’t seem like the typical drama performances people used to engage in, despite the stage and firelight. This is something else. Something perhaps unique to this land alone.

“Her dancing will transport you, inspire you… perhaps even excite you…”

There are a few knowing cheers that come from the men in the audience at that last comment.

“Feast your eyes, good friends, on Rey, the Mistress of the Night!”

The man steps away as the people in the crowd applaud, and Kylo sees that someone had sat themselves down on the stage behind the man when he had been talking, now sitting with their arms circled in front of them, their head touched against the ground.

Everyone goes quiet as music suddenly rises from somewhere, echoing all around the square, sounding as if it’s coming from some sort of flute and harp, though Kylo can’t see anyone playing anything.

The woman kneeling on the stage slowly curls her body upward at the first touch of the music, her spine stacking gradually as she unfurls herself from against the ground, until her head finally looks up straight, revealing the most striking face Kylo has ever seen.

She is young. No more than twenty. Even from this distance, Kylo can see clearly the pink of her lips and the most hypnotizing pair of eyes that decorate the light golden skin of her face. Her hair is pulled away from her face in an unusual style that must have originated here, because he’s never seen any women anywhere else with their hair pinned in a pattern down the back of their head.

Has he? He suddenly finds it hard to recall women he’s seen before. They all looked the same, had they not?

The girl rises onto her feet, the grey colored scarves from her desert-style attire blowing gently in the light breeze. Her foot slides back as her arms slowly rise from her sides, up over her head.

A flowing red scarf ripples from each of her hands, tied to her fingers as they flicker in the wind, matching the flickering from the flames that light her body, casting long shadows across the stage.

The music changes slightly, and the girl swings her upper body in a slow arc, circling slowly as she closes her eyes and stretches her arms beyond her, as if she were reaching for something. She then lunges forward, her sharp eyes gazing intently out at the crowd as one of her arms cuts forward in front of her, pointing out towards the audience.

Kylo finds his eyes pouring over every inch of her slender form that bends and reaches to the calming tone of the music. He feels the warmth from the fires that dance alongside her, as if his face were inches from them. He feels as if he is being pulled closer and closer to her, seeing every detail of her tight fitting clothes, the strands of hair flowing loose from their updo, the ridges in her skin, toughened from desert-living.

He keeps moving and moving, until he is somewhere far away, the world beneath him dropping away as he watches her slow, sensual movements that pull him into her story.

Something about it tugs at something that must be from his past life, because he can’t quite recall it. Something in the beauty and grace with which she twirls and lunges that strikes deep within his soul and forces him to stay absolutely still as he watches.

Her dance tells a story of a bright eyed child that was taught to yearn for adventure. A child that grew into a lonely young woman with no knowledge of her family or her past. A woman who longs for escape, excitement, love, the exhilaration of seeing new lands, meeting new people.

And that is it. That is what Kylo recalls. Once, long ago, so long that it is more like a phantom memory, he remembers he longed for the same things, asked the same questions over and over to himself.

The girl’s dancing goes on to tell a story of hardship, disappointment, heartbreak, loneliness. But also hope. A kind of hope so precious, Kylo feels his heart jump in his chest at the same rhythm at which the girl leaps into the air, looking like she is reaching for something, and feels his stomach drop every time she elegantly lands on the ground before rising back up again.

She will never give up. That is what she is telling her audience. Despite the difficult road given to her, she is never dispirited.

Kylo feels every kind of emotion being thrown over him, but he welcomes it. He can hear nothing but the soft music against the desert wind, see nothing but the scavenger girl on the stage who seems to be speaking to his very being.

The music begins to slow, and the slight intensity the girl had picked up in her movements starts to slow as well, as she spins slowly, the rippling, flame colored scarves waving in the wind as she does.

She stops her twirling, one arm reaching behind her, one in front of her, as she slowly bends forward, her leg pointing back in an arc that reminds Kylo of a move ballet dancers did when such things were allowed back in Exegol.

Kylo’s heart stops in his chest, leaving the air in absolute silence, as he sees the penetrating eyes of the young woman stare directly into his.

It is ridiculous of course. How would she even be able to see him? And yet, he feels a chill down his spine, a heat around his body, as their eyes meet as she finishes her final pose, a meaningful look in her eyes as she stares at him, looking as if she is reaching straight toward him, her arm outstretched as though she is offering him something.

Just as quick as the moment had happened, it is over, and the crowd breaks out into outrageous applause, hollering praise as the young woman drops out of her pose and gives a graceful bow before disappearing off the stage just as instantly as she had appeared.

Kylo stays back and looks for the girl long after the show has ended. He sees her briefly, in the darkness beside the stage, but she never comes back out.

Eventually, everyone begins to disperse, gathering up their things and heading back to their homes. It is far past midnight, a most indecent time to be awake and outdoors, but Kylo feels he has broken enough rules by now that it can’t matter if he breaks any more.

He spots the girl easily amongst the small sea of people.

Rey. That was the name the man had given when he announced her. Kylo finds that everything he has seen about her fits the name perfectly.

She walks off in a different direction than everyone else once she has slung her bag over her shoulder, so it’s easy for him to quietly follow some distance behind her and not have anyone see him. She is completely alone when she walks off into the dark, empty desert, as if without a single fear in her mind.

He has no idea how she can see three feet in front of her in pitch black without so much as a lantern, but she treks along quite efficiently, so she must walk this lonely road often.

He starts to get a bit nervous as they get further and further into the open desert, where there is nowhere for him to disclose himself. He just has to pray she won’t turn to look behind her and notice the tall, dark clothed man stalking several yards behind her. He assumes there aren't usually many other people that walk this route in the darkness.

Should he just go up to her? Offer to see her home, as any gentleman would? Ask her why she had been looking at him as she finished her dance?

No matter what option he comes up with, he can’t get himself to run a few steps forward and call out to her. He likes her not knowing that he is here, whether that is because he wants to see what her destination is, or he is… afraid of speaking to her.

He at least is enjoying the feeling of fresh, if slightly muggy, air on his bare face as his boots push through the heavy sand, sinking slightly with every step.

The desert is certainly less comfortable than the city, but it is interesting to experience nonetheless.

They eventually come to a much better area for him to hide, a place where there seems to be many more dunes filled with miscellaneous scraps of junk and metal. Once again, Kylo is amazed at how the girl seems to effortlessly jump and dodge everything in her path, despite the lack of any light. Though he assumes any scavenger would feel right at home in a place such as this.

Unfortunately, there are apparently others who chose to conceal themselves behind the various sandhills and pieces of scrap, because there are two dark figures that suddenly leap out of nowhere, even making the young woman jump back in surprise.

Kylo is quick to duck behind a nearby piece of metal, while the two men stop in front of the scavenger girl, making her step back defensively.

“Well well,” Kylo hears one of the men speak slyly, sounding as if he were giving a slimy smile behind the scarf covering the lower half of his face. “Look who’s walking all alone tonight.”

The two men chuckle, as one stands in front of her, and the other circles around behind her.

“I hope you have something for us, girl,” the other man behind her speaks as she tries backing away, her face looking surprisingly calm, from what Kylo can see. “Or else this could get a lot messier than it needs to.”

“You’ve tried to steal from me before,” a strong, pleasant sounding voice speaks out confidently against the two thugs. “Don’t be so sure that you will be able to this time.”

“You’re all alone this time, dear,” the man in front of her taunts as she turns and slowly backs away from the two of them, shouldering her bag protectively behind her. “Just give us everything you’ve got with you, and we won’t hurt you… too bad.”

“And I’ve been alone before,” she replies fearlessly. “Long before you ever crossed my path.”

In one swift movement, too fast for Kylo to see properly, she somehow ducks down, grabs something off the ground, and swings it around, using her entire body weight to slam this long, pole shaped object she had snatched up right into the side of one of the thugs.

He hits the ground, and the other one makes a grab at her, but she swings the steel pole right at his face, snapping his head to the side before she kicks him in the ribs several times, not giving him a chance to recover.

Throwing the pole down, she leaps down onto one of the unconscious men, grabbing something out of his pockets, before moving quickly to the other one who is starting to get up, snatching his valuables, and running off into the night.

Kylo is too stunned to do anything for a moment. A part of him wants to run off and follow her, but he remains frozen in place, his gaze drifting back down to the two men crumpled on the ground.

An anger suddenly burns through him as if a hot iron had been pressed against his chest. He has felt rage before, but nothing that hits him quite so hard, nothing that makes him want to act so quickly.

He had left his sword back at his sleeping quarters along with his mask, which he realizes now was quite an unwise thing to do, but it matters little. He has killed without it before. All his hours training have left him with an unusual strength that he has used to his advantage time and time again.

Kylo pictures going up to the thug rising to his feet, twisting him around and capturing him in a headlock before the man even sees what’s coming. With one firm movement, he could break the thug’s neck.

He imagines grabbing the other man by the throat, lifting him up onto his feet, slamming him against the nearby piece of metal that he had jumped out from behind before drawing his sword and impaling it into the man’s chest in one short movement.

But Kylo remains where he is. Crouching and watching the two thugs before they roll up off the ground, gather their bearings, and after cursing profusely once they realize they themselves have been robbed, they run off into the night, thankfully not in the direction the girl had gone.

He could have killed them. It would have been just. They are thieves. But that isn’t why he had wanted so badly to take their lives.

After rising to his feet slowly and standing in the silence for a few moments, an unexplainable sick feeling courses through his stomach. He decides to run back to the bunks as fast as he can, a whole manner of things running through his mind as he bounds through the sand, feeling as if he wants to keep running and running right off the face of the Earth.

Chapter Text

Niima Outpost has a vastly different atmosphere to it this morning than it had when Finn first arrived.

He isn’t sure if the church officials did this on purpose or not, but it seems they picked a time to travel here right when some kind of town celebration is afoot. After listening around for a while, he finds out it is something called the Feast of Fools, a time when everyone dresses in the most bizarre and exotic clothing they have, decorations of every color bloom out of every shop, every tent, and every corner.

Bells are jingling, people are dancing, foods matching all the colors in the decorations are being sold at every counter, and the joy and excitement in the air makes Finn better understand that perhaps the church indeed wanted to come here on this day in an attempt to suck every bit of life out of an event such as this.

Even though everyone in town seems to be in much higher spirits, Finn doubts anyone will want to discuss joining the Resistance on a day like this. And he can’t exactly blame them. Given how dreary and miserable things looked like yesterday, he can only imagine how relieving it must be for times like these to come along in a place like Jakku.

After getting a look at the celebration, and paying to try a few of the brightly decorated cakes himself, Finn follows the crowd that begins to flock over towards the town square, where the stage has been decorated even more loudly than the rest of the town.

An array of men dressed in vibrant clothing perform tricks upon the stage, juggling fruit, twisting and bending themselves into impossible shapes, balancing small tables and chairs on their noses… Finn has never seen anything like it before in his life.

He’s sure he probably looks awfully idiotic, but all he can do is stand amidst the crowd of cheering people with his mouth slightly open, staring in awe at the amazing display before him.

There are dancers on the stage as well. Mostly men as well, but there is suddenly a woman who takes the stage, much to the crowd’s fierce appreciation.

She instantly harbors every iota of attention once she steps into everyone’s view. Though the music continues to ring out, the crowd goes nearly silent in awe as she dances, a tambourine glinting in her hand as she moves to the rhythm of the music.

She is draped in flowing, lilac colored fabrics that sparkle and flow around her as she twirls, gold jewelry flashing from her arms and chest. Her soft looking brown hair is twisted up in an intricate style down the back of her head, framing an angelic face that seems to glow in the sunlight.

Finn is mesmerized as he watches her, something moving in his chest as he sees her smile with such immense joy, one would think there is never a time she isn’t happy.

It is a warm, beautiful, safe feeling she brings with her, some assurance that everything is going to turn out well, that everything in the world is amazing and wonderful. It calms Finn’s heart and mind as he watches her leap and clap her hand against the tambourine, looking as if she wants the entire world to feel as happy as she does. And from the looks on everyone’s faces, she is doing her job quite well.

Who is she? he wonders.

Hux has been nothing short of disgusted by the gaudy display parading itself through Niima Outpost since the moment they awakened this morning. He instantly wished to move on to their next destination once he caught sight of the ungodly celebration being put on by these heathens. But they have a job to do here, and the church is nothing less than professional in seeing through with its endeavors.

He, Kylo Ren, and the ministers are currently seated in their own private viewing area, set up for them by the poor mongrels that pass for town officials in this desolate land, and surrounded by their guards. Hux and Ren are in front, the two ministers behind them, and Hux doesn’t care much to ask what any of them are thinking of the sight before them, but he can guess based on the rather uncomfortable silence.

“We’ll only tolerate this nonsense for today,” he announces to them over the obnoxiously loud and invading music mixed in with the shouting and cheering from the locals. “Just to make sure this crude performance does not mock Palpatine or the church.”

“Or God,” one of the ministers agrees in a quiet voice, as if he is intimidated by the scene before him. Hux thinks of telling him that the ridicule of God is already quite present amongst these beasts. But he is willing to allow that that may be due more to pure ignorance than defiance.

They are quite a ways away from the platform that is set up in the middle of the town square, but Hux can see clearly the woman who suddenly takes center stage, stealing the attention of every person standing before her as she begins to dance.

She is an image of impurity. Temptation. A scavenger, obviously. Hux can identify that much from miles away.

Her skirts drape loosely around her, clinging to her hips that jerk and sway as she dances, a most obscene gesture to be doing anywhere, let alone such a publicized area. He also notices, to his further disgust, that the material clinging to her slim body seems to be quite transparent, in every sense of the word.

She sports garish gold jewelry of course, as most thieving scavenger women do, having no shame in letting it decorate the bodice of her dress as well as along her arms.

Her dress is cut low, exposing the dip in her chest, the outline of her breasts that she vulgarly puts on display as she continues about her dancing, her movements profane in every way, purposefully trying to ignite lust in the heart of every man in the audience.

It’s a nauseating exhibit, to say the least. Though, he’s not sure what he should have expected. These people know nothing better than to flaunt themselves in such ways, spitting in the face of morality, teasing everyone with their sin.

It does not help one bit that the sun seems to be incessantly bearing down on him as if it were intent on setting him on fire, He feels as if the heavy dark uniform upon his skin is weighing down on him like a house of bricks, the back of his neck thick with sweat, his lungs too stifled to take a proper breath, and his head so delirious, that the glittering material from the scavenger girl’s dress is making his eyes feel like they’re spinning round and round in time with her twirling.

Suddenly, it becomes as if his eyes are stuck to her, her wild movements and the glimmer of her gown sucking in his attention until it looks as if she is the only moving thing everywhere around him.

He hasn’t even enough sense to wonder if this is some sort of cruel trick that women of her kind like to play, moving in ways that confuse men, making them delirious enough to become mesmerized by their beauty.

Beauty… she is beautiful.

No, not beautiful. Too strong a word. A naturally attractive woman. Yes, that’s more accurate. But good looks are unimportant. Anyone can have them, even one who is filled with sin.

He shifts uncomfortably under the unforgivable sun, aching to pull at the collar that feels as if it is determined to strangle tighter and tighter against his throat.

As he continues to stare at her in his heat-induced trance, he begins to notice more details about her, as if his eyes were growing closer to her, able to view the smallest of things despite his distance from the stage.

There are strands loose from her hair that frame a small face with heated eyes that look filled with emotion. Senseless, misplaced emotion no doubt, but emotion nonetheless. Her pink lips are parted into a smile as her chest rises and falls quicker and quicker as she continues dancing under the sun, though the heat doesn’t seem to bother her as much as it does him. He doesn’t even see a hint of sweat anywhere on her overexposed body, though that would be an indistinguishable thing to see from this far away.

He suddenly feels a yearning leap through him, jerking through his arm all the way to his fingertips that feel the urge to reach out and touch against the opening in her dress to feel the sheen of sweat on her breasts.

Hux feels his face turn red with some sickening feeling that is caught between anger and embarrassment. He is suddenly beyond thankful for the intense heat that will make his state unnoticeable.

What is wrong with him? Is he feverish? Has he really let the weather get to his head so much that he would think to…

He shakes the thought off before the fantasy can come to him again, the sick, depraved fantasy that should never have come in the first place…

Yes. That’s it. No one can read his mind, even though he feels a creep of paranoia as his eyes flicker this way and that, as if waiting for someone to point to him and brand him a lust-crazed sinner. No one knows his thoughts. No one need ever know the shameful idea that had flashed before his eyes.

God is nowhere out here. The prophet is miles and miles away. The thought never happened. It does not exist.

Hux finds solace in this solution, feeling his horror begin to subside, despite his eyes still being attached to every move the scavenger girl makes.

He stands still and keeps his face blank, though his heart is beating madly against his ribs.

No matter. If no one can decipher his first thought… no one can decipher anything else he may be thinking, right?

Yes… yes. For now, it will be alright. It is simply the heat and the wickedness of these crude gypsies and scavenger thieves getting under his skin. He is allowed to have this, his moment of weakness, completely within his own mind, out of sight from God or Palpatine, and Notre Dame. Nothing important is near.

This is how he allows himself to continue to view the suggestive dance of the girl, feeling everything else drop away, as if she has suddenly become the center of the entire world, holding his unbreakable attention.

Just for now.

Kylo has never felt so confused, terrified, and uneasy in his entire life.

Even though the sun is beating relentlessly and he is drowned in his black robes and dark mask, nothing could make him feel more stifled than being cramped in this viewing box with Hux seated only inches to his right, two ministers behind him, and guards swarmed on every side of them.

He is not what some would call ‘fidgety’ in general, but at this moment, he is finding that it is taking every ounce of strength and concentration to remain as still as a statue as he watches the celebration sweeping through Niima Outpost.

Of course, there had to be another performance, this one a thousand times bigger than the one from last night. And of course she had to be here. Again.

She is like a Goddess. There is so much going on, much more excitement than the quiet, elegant show from last night, and yet Rey is able to capture all the attention for herself, even when there are men folding over backwards in half and juggling chairs beside her.

No amount of fancy tricks or jests could distract from her beauty. She commands everyone’s attention effortlessly, as if she doesn’t even realize how alluring she is, how inhumanly perfect she appears in every movement of her body.

Her clothes are more decorative today, no doubt for the celebration. Her flowing dress is colored in light blues and purples, matching the wrappings on her arms that are framed with glittering gold bands. Her hair is the same, though slightly less loose than it had been last night. And instead of scarves, she has a tambourine with her today, though there is one of the fire colored fabrics from last night tied to the end of the instrument, rippling along through the air whenever she waves it over her head or claps it against her hand to the intense music that seems to be picking up more and more.

If Kylo could have torn his eyes away from Rey, he would have noticed that the entire crowd as well as the fellow performers all seemed to be matching the mood of the music, as if something important was about to start, like the eagerness before a ritual.

The man from last night comes out onto the stage, dressed in some strange, colorful costume that all the performers are dressed in.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he bellows, his voice capturing everyone’s attention as his hands reach out in front of him, as if he were reaching for the crowd. “Today, we celebrate this most noble of Jakku traditions, the day that has been celebrated since the beginning of our settlement. And, as this is the Feast of Fools, we honor the one among us who is the ugliest in the land!”

Everyone in the crowd cheers, and Kylo watches as Rey leaps down off the stage and into the crowd along with the other performers, all of them beginning to move through the crowd.

“This hour, we crown the King of Fools!” the man on the stage continues as Kylo tries to keep his eyes on where Rey has disappeared among the mass of people. “The funniest, most foul faced, inhuman looking, scream-inducing beast will take the title!”

The music becomes more and more intense, people somewhere off in the distance banging on drums as others sing ecstatically, a chant about the King of Fools.

A flash coming from the corner of his eye makes Kylo turn his head.

And suddenly, Rey is only a few feet away, dancing merrily through the crowd, her bright smile and intense eyes engaging everyone she passes by.

“Which one of you will it be?!”

She moves toward him as if she were floating, her dress glittering madly in the sunlight as she grazes to where their viewing box is set.

He sees her hand touch against others’ bodies as she walks past, but the sensation he feels once she whisks by them, looking him and Hux in the eye while she lightly brushes her hand against their chests as she passes, makes Kylo feel as if she had drawn a line of fire along him.

Even the guards surrounding them look shocked. Kylo sees that Hux has gone incredibly still, and he doesn’t even want to see what the two ministers look like.

Kylo looks this way and that, expecting something to happen, someone to say something. But the crowd around them is completely focused on the stage, as if the dazzling scavenger girl hadn’t just brushed her hand across his chest.

He feels… unexplainably fearful. Confused. Why had she done that? But of course, she hadn’t intentionally. She had been lazily running her hand along as she strode through the crowd. She hadn’t meant to… had she?

When he looks now, Rey simply goes about prancing through the crowd until she’s back to the stage and the music seems to have risen higher and higher, not aiding in Kylo’s sudden burst of nerves in the slightest.

“Aha!” the man suddenly hollars out, making Kylo attempt to refocus his attention. And when he does, he could swear the gypsy man is staring directly at him. “We may have a winner already, my friends!”

Everyone in the audience turns eagerly to where the man is looking off to, and Kylo feels himself stiffen anxiously as he continues to feel as if the man’s beady eyes are boring into him.

“Of course!” one of the acrobats calls out as his eyes too fix on Kylo. “What better King should we have than Notre Dame’s warrior?!”

Kylo feels a strange sensation run through him at the confirmation that everyone’s eager staring eyes are in fact directed at him and him alone.

“Yeah!” someone in the audience cries out. “I’ve heard he’s deaf and dumb, that’s why he don’t talk at all!”

“Gotta be a twisted face he’s got if he’s gotta cover it up with a mask like that!”

“There must be a monster under there!”

“Alright, alright ladies and gentlemen!” the man on the stage, who appears to be the ringleader, calls out again. “I believe we may have our victor! The knight of the church must have a face that would make the devil cry if he should forever hide his features behind such a nightmarish vizard.”

A knowing grin suddenly crawls over his lips as he lowers his head and continues to look straight into the face of Kylo’s mask.

“And, I do believe… the knight’s blood may run hot with desire for our dear scavenger dancer.”

Kylo feels his jaw grip tighter as the crowd makes lewd noises and he sees the guards turn ever so slightly towards him.

He is terrified to look over at Hux.

He does notice Rey, who has stopped dancing, and is instead standing toward the side of the stage, a strange look on her face. The brightness and excitement is still there, but something in her eyes has changed.

“So, my dear,” the ringleader says, turning towards her and gesturing out to the crowd. “Would you be so kind as to bring our winner up to the stage so that he may be crowned?”

The crowd erupts in applause, and Rey looks back out over them, another strange look going through her eyes, before her smile widens and she skips back down off the stage and begins walking through the parting sea of people.

Kylo stands frozen the entire time it takes her to walk to him. It feels as if the world is tilting slightly. Like he is in a dream that he is about to wake up from.

But he stays right where he is, until Rey is right in front of him, walking fearlessly past the offended looking guards, and extending her hand out to him.

She looks right into the visor of his mask, an inviting look in her eyes that tells him not to be afraid. To trust her.

His hand moves as if magnetized, tentatively reaching out halfway towards her, his heart beating so fast, he’s afraid everyone around them may be able to hear it clearly trying to beat its way out of his chest.

He risks a glance over at Hux, expecting to find him glaring at him in outrage, or perhaps shaking his head in disappointment at his behavior.

But the man looks like a statue, staring straight out ahead of him, not a single feature of his face moving, his jaw locked, his body rigid, and looking as if he is very intentionally trying not to look at Kylo at all.

Rey reaches the rest of the way, her small hand gripping around Kylo’s gloved one, yanking him out of his seat with a surprising amount of strength as she turns and marches back towards the stage.

Kylo finds himself unable to refuse, letting himself be pulled along, his body and mind still feeling as if he is in a trance.

Again, he is not sure what he should be feeling as he is led up onto the stage and is suddenly surrounded by thunderous cheers and laughs as Rey releases his hand and steps around to face him.

“Kylo Ren, the King of Fools!” the man proclaims, to a thunder of applause from the audience. “A feat I’m sure Notre Dame never thought they’d achieve, ay?”

Everyone Kylo has come across has met him with nothing but fear or hatred. No one dared to speak to him, to cross his path. He spent years being trained to make sure he would bring nothing but intimidation to whomever looked his way or knew of his wrath. But these people seem completely unfearful of how he looks or even the rumors that have surely made their way even to a place such as this.

“Take away his veil, my dear!” the ringleader commands. “Let us see our King!”

Kylo turns to look at Rey, who suddenly reaches both her arms out towards him, her hands latching into his helmet.

No… no, no, no!

Before he can even think to move quick enough to push her away, his mask is lifted away.

His face is first hit by the glare of the bright sun, making him blink away for a few moments as he stumbles back, his mind screaming at him to cover his face with his hands, but all he can do is stand there, breathing heavily as he gazes out at the crowd before him.

The entire square goes absolutely silent the instant his face is revealed.

Kylo has not felt such shame in a long while. He has worked endlessly to do as he is told and bring salvation to his soul so that he may never feel such shame ever again. But here he is, feeling his face go red as it feels as if everything he has been working for in the past years and years of his life is suddenly falling to pieces before his very eyes.

He is too penitent to even look towards Hux, afraid to look at Rey, and horrified to see the faces of everyone in the audience.

As quickly as the silence had shrouded the crowd, a chorus of booing suddenly takes over.

“Get him off!” someone shouts.

“He ain’t ugly enough to be our King!”

“Put that mask back on, he looked scarier!”

The ringleader steps back to the center of the stage in an attempt to calm the crowd.

“Now everyone, no need to panic!” he announces, waving his hands about. “We will find our King yet!”

Kylo finally turns his eyes to see Rey, still standing before him, his helmet held in her still hands.

In her eyes is a look Kylo did not expect to see. There is surprise, yes, but also something else. Something curious. Her head is cocked ever so slightly, the loose strands of her brown hair blowing gently in the hot breeze as she gazes upon him as if she were viewing something she had many questions about.

Kylo never thought much about his looks. Such thoughts are vain and sinful. But he supposed he had a somewhat average face. Nothing important and certainly nothing for someone to be staring at the way she is. As if she were looking at something… beautiful.

She takes a step towards him, and he finds himself almost jumping back. But all she does is offer him a small, kind smile, her eyes looking apologetic as she extends her arms slightly, holding his helmet back out to him.

He is still for a moment, maybe in shock or confusion, but he soon has his senses return back to him, and he quickly takes the mask back from her and secures it back over his head, giving him at least a small ounce of relief.

The performers are starting to swarm back onto the stage as the man continues talking with the crowd, who all seem a lot more eager now that he has his hideous mask on.

But Rey suddenly looks dispirited, her smile gone, the joy in her step vanished as she looks off at something with a somber look in her eyes, before turning and walking quickly off the stage, obscured by the bustle of acrobats and gypsies that have trickled in to take her place.

Kylo is able to keep his eyes on her long enough to watch her vanish into a nearby tent.

Feeling a sudden jolt of frustration that seems to burn through his bones, Kylo shoves past the crowd of people on the stage, jumping back down onto the sand covered ground, and walking as quickly as he can back toward the viewing box, keeping his gaze straight ahead, ignoring the hundreds of faces that turn to gawk at him as he goes by.

As he arrives, he sees Hux rising from his seat. As expected, he ignores Kylo completely as he steps out and past him to speak with the guards.

“That’s enough of this,” he says to them, his tone ripe with something Kylo can’t quite identify, and finds he doesn’t wish to. “Put an end to this shameful display at once.”

The guards move quickly to carry out Hux’s order, beginning to break up the crowds, much to everyone’s confusion, and eventual terror.

Kylo has seen the act time and time again. It will begin like this, the guards simply moving threateningly through the mass of people, aiming their swords and spears at those who refuse to cooperate. Captain Pryde, the head of the Guard, will order more and more troops, until there is a frenzy, the guards’ voices booming louder and louder at the crowd until someone gets too defiant and is impaled through the chest or head.

Then there will be chaos, everyone running wild as the guards move to kill anyone in sight, anyone who refuses to comply with the law, the new law that is imposed on even this small little town.

The only difference this time is, Kylo isn’t out there joining in and ending the revolution and any thoughts of escaping before it has barely begun.

He stands back, looking to where Hux is standing with the ministers, viewing the scene with a heated look in his eye, scanning over the entire square that has begun to disperse in a panic as the armed guards crawl through their domain.

“Back to the carriage,” Hux speaks sharply, and Kylo knows, though he doesn’t turn to face him, that he is speaking to him. “You will be dealt with later.”

Having no choice but to obey, Kylo turns away from the growing mayhem, and walks slowly away from the town, back to where their carriage is ready for them to depart after they have left their mark on the pitiful village.

The only thing that brings some solace to his mind is remembering how Rey had handled herself against the two thieves last night, and thinking she could very well defend herself should any guard attack her today.

Rey hears the commotion not long after she has changed out of her costume and back into her regular attire. And apparently, it is a good thing she did, because when she opens the curtain of her tent, she sees Niima Outpost has somehow delved into utter madness.

People are running in every direction, falling over each other, screaming in horror as several groups of men with spears and swords stomp through the town, pushing people down, knocking things over, and shouting at the top of their lungs for people to get out of their way.

At least that is what the shouting starts as, before it turns into some of the most horrid slurs Rey has ever heard in her life.

She immediately recognizes them as the guards that had been with the people who had come from the church.

People had spoken of this happening. As soon as everyone heard the ministers from Notre Dame were coming, there had been whispers in the streets of how they were coming to wipe them all out, to take away their freedoms as they had in other lands. She hadn’t paid any mind to the worries, it had all seemed so… impossible.

Sharp screams cut across the air as people are pushed to the ground, struck across the face. A woman running across the ground, looking like she is heading towards one of the tents for the performers, trips over a group of people who had fallen to the ground, colliding against the sand herself, rolling into one of the guards.

The guard seems to look down at the woman in disgust, before raising his spear and running her through.

Rey’s heart lurches in horror as blood splatters over the tan colored sand, and the panic already strewn through the town increases as if the entire town has been swept up in a storm.

She soon finds herself thrown into the mess, people knocking into her, pushing her aside violently to get away from the guards, while a brave few try to fight. But even Rey can see that the feeble weaponry here is no match for the Exegol guards.

Heart racing, she decides all she can do is try to help as many as she can. She tries leading people away from the market, where everyone seems to want to hide, and out towards the open desert, that from here looks as if it goes on for miles. But Rey knows the city guards will have much more trouble trying to track down anyone in the sand dunes. One advantage she has found in being a desert rat.

There is no way to try to find the children or the elderly or the injured first. All Rey can do is scream at the top of her lungs for everyone to run out towards the dunes, relieved when she is able to gather several small groups into doing just that, and also pleased to find that the guards seem reluctant to step outside the town into terrain they don’t know as well.

Unfortunately, one of the guards, the one that seems to be leading the attack, seems to pick up on what she’s doing.

She meets his ice cold glare from across the crowd, and he is soon marching straight towards her, his hand gripping the handle of his sword and unsheathing it from his belt as he approaches.

Rey begins to prepare herself to fight, a million things going through her mind as she wonders if she will last long against him, or if she has only seconds left of her life.

Before the man can even get within a few feet of her however, something crashes into her side, pulling her out of range of the charging captain, and into the thick of the crowd.

“Let go of me!” she grunts, feeling someone’s hands on her arms, practically carrying her like a rag doll.

“We have to get out of here!” a voice calls out to her.

She tries wriggling around in the man’s grip to get a look at who he is, but he has a firm hold.

“No, we have to help!” she protests. “Let go!”

He finally loosens his hold and she whips around to stare incredulously at the young man, instantly being able to recognize that he is most certainly not from around here.

“Look!” he insists, gesturing at the chaos around them. “I know how this ends! There’s no way we’ll survive, I’m trying to help you!”

She knows he is right. One look at the horrible mess that used to be a town in celebration, sends a dark warning through her instincts that there is nothing more she can do, and if she wants to survive, she has to run.

Staring back at the young man, she is stunned to see that he hasn’t moved an inch, seeming insistent on her coming with him.

Nodding quickly, she looks past him, towards the vacant, dead looking path she takes to get home.

“I know a way,” she tells him.

Once she begins running towards the open, empty desert, she can tell the man is a bit unsure about her sense of direction, to say the least. But she has walked this path through and through every day of her life. She could run through it blindfolded. The man will just have to trust her for now.

She tries her best not to turn and look back when she hears more crashing and screaming from the town, and soon smells the thick stench of smoke and the sound of flames crackling through the empty air.

Chapter Text

It is a long and painful trek through endless sand dunes and junk yards that the scavenger girl takes him on before they finally arrive at something resembling safety. At least, Finn assumes its safety, since she stops running once she sees the strange looking hut in the middle of the empty desert.

He had thought he was being such a hero in offering to save her life. He’s not even sure why he did it. The smartest thing would have been to take cover and pray he would be able to not get discovered and somehow sneak back onto the carriage to get back to Exegol. Now, it would seem he is stuck here indefinitely. But alive.

But in that horrible mess, one that he has seen happen to village upon village, he couldn’t bear seeing her there, attempting to get others to safety. He’s seen people attempt things like that before and they’re usually some of the first to die.

He couldn’t let her die.

Finn is roughly pulled out of his thoughts when the young woman shoves him through the tiny entrance of the hut, making him slam his head against something on the way in, while she turns to scan the area around them before following him inside.

“We’ve definitely lost them,” she confirms as Finn rubs at his head, gazing around the strangely decorated little hut. It obviously isn’t meant to house more than one person. “Are you alright?”

He whips around to face her, seeing a look of concern in her eyes as she studies him oddly.

“Yes,” he replies quickly, bringing his hand back down to his side. “Um… I’m… I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what else to say. He can see the look behind her eyes. She knows what has happened to her village by now, and to most of the people in it.

She turns away, untying a small bag of something from her waist and tossing it into a pile near a small, circular little window that lets in a stream of sunlight.

“You’re not from Jakku,” is all she says as she steps around him, heading towards something resembling a seat, reaching for something on one of the many shelves that seem to circle the walls. “Where did you come from?”

Finn finds himself completely caught off guard. He had planned to explain all of this to her gradually, give her time to mourn first maybe, or to recognize what had just happened.

“I’m from Exegol,” he tells her, walking over towards the table she had sat at, where she now pauses whatever it is she had been fiddling with. “I’m with the Resistance.”

It’s quiet for a brief moment, and he wonders if perhaps she is horrified that he comes from the same place the men who ravaged her village are from, but her response surprises him.

“What’s that?” she questions, turning to stare at him intently.

“You’ve never heard of it?” he asks, feeling his heart sink a bit when she shakes her head. It looks as if their message hasn’t reached this far out. “We’re fighting against the corruption of the church. Trying to stop them from taking over. This man, Palpatine, he has everyone brainwashed into thinking he’s some sort of messenger of God, and now… now everything’s in chaos.”

“Palpatine,” she speaks softly, her eyes dropping away from him. “Who is he?”

“No one knows,” Finn tells her, pulling over a small stool to sit across from her. “Nobody knows if he’s even real, only the highest ranking members of Notre Dame have claimed to have met with him. But we’re thinking they could be using him as an excuse to gain more power.”

Her eyes suddenly widen in something between amazement and unsureness.

“Notre Dame is real?” she asks, her voice as stunned as her expression.

He stares at her in confusion. Even in the most remote corners of the world, everyone has heard of Notre Dame. Haven’t they?

“Of course it is,” he replies. “Those men in the fancy uniforms and the guards that attacked the town, that is where they came from.”

Her eyes lower as her face sinks.

“I know,” she admits, remorse flooding her soft voice. “It’s just… I was always told Notre Dame was the most magnificent place in the world. That it is full of love and beauty. Those… those monsters couldn’t have come from a place like that.”

“I’m afraid that’s what Notre Dame has become,” Finn explains. “A place filled with hate and judgement rather than the hope and love it was intended to bring.”

Her eyes stare down in bewilderment, and Finn finally puts together that it’s food she had been working to get out of some sort of container that she had pulled off the shelf.

“But that’s why I’m here,” he tells her, trying to keep his tone hopeful, reassuring, comforting even. “The Resistance is gathering more and more support from more lands everyday. Soon, we will be strong enough to fight against them, to take over and restore the church to what it’s meant to be.”

She’s quiet as she stares down at her food, not eating it or even picking at it.

“Only now, I...I don’t really have a way to get back at the moment.”

Her eyebrows knit together in confusion

“What do you mean, how did you get here?”

“I… that’s a bit of a complicated story, but… well, I stowed away on a carriage that now has probably either left without me, or has become completely compromised.”

She remains looking down at her uneaten food, her face still bewildered.

“Well, why don’t you just stowaway on one of the transport carriages?”

Finn stares at her for a moment until she has raised her head to look back at him.

“You’ve never heard of those?”

“I have,” he nods, his spirits beginning to rise as he leans forward eagerly. “I never knew ones came all the way out here.”

“Of course they do,” she gives a small laugh. “We’re not as withdrawn from the world as you think. One comes here every couple of days to trade supplies with the market. Otherwise we wouldn’t be as well stocked as we are. How do you think all this junk gets here?”

“Do you know when the next one is coming?” he asks anxiously, relief flooding through him at the impossible news.

Her eyes raise up in thought as she remembers back to something.

“Last time was the day before yesterday, so… one should be passing through here tomorrow.”

“And they come through here?”

“No. Here’s too rough for them, we’d have to travel down a ways, past the junk yards. I think it goes as far as Takodana. That should get you close enough at least.”

Finn feels he could sweep her off her feet in a celebratory embrace.

“What?” she asks, beginning to look a bit amused at his expression.

“You have no idea how happy you’ve just made me.” He exhales in incredulous consolation as she laughs at his reaction. “Are they difficult to sneak onto?”

“Shouldn’t be. They’re enormous. People sneak aboard them all the time to get from place to place.”

The news couldn’t be more reassuring.

“Thank you so much…” he trails off as he realizes something, looking upon her beautiful, smiling face. “Um… I don’t know your name,” he hints, realizing they had never made it to introductions.

“Rey,” she replies, the name rolling off her tongue easily, in a way that makes him think it couldn’t be more perfect for her. “What’s yours?”

“Finn,” he answers, feeling himself suddenly feel clumsy, awestruck in an instant by watching the way the sunlight coming in from a small hole in the wall lights up her dazzling eyes, casting shadows all around her. “Rey, I…”

“You’ll be needing someone to take you to the proper route,” she nods, thinking she has guessed what he was about to ask her. “I can take you there tomorrow if you want, early. They pass through before the sun reaches the middle of the sky-”

“Come with me.”

He says it quickly before he can talk himself out of it, and from the look she gives him, it is the last thing she had expected to hear.

“What?” she questions, her voice much quieter than it had been.

“I want you to come with me,” he repeats, his arm leaning against the small table, stopping himself before he instinctively reaches for her. “We need someone like you.”

Her wide, confused eyes gaze at him for a moment before giving a humorless laugh.

“I’m not much of a warrior,” she confesses. “I can handle myself against a common thief or two, but an entire army of guards…”

“We aren’t all warriors,” he assures her. “Most of us can’t even fight. We need people who are kind. Compassionate. Someone who is willing to help others, to fight for what is right.”

He lets his words wash over her as she leans back in her seat, her eyes suddenly looking down at the table, past her long forgotten can of food.

“Go with you,” she breathes, a look he can’t quite comprehend flashing through her eyes. “To Exegol…”

“Yes,” he nods encouragingly. “I know it’s a risk, and you hardly know me, but-”

“But anywhere is better than here,” she says in almost a whisper.

“No,” he shakes his head quickly, “no, I didn’t mean that, it’s just-”

“I’ve never left Jakku my entire life,” she tells him, looking up into his eyes again. “Not once.”

The hut is filled with an unbreakable silence as Finn looks pleadingly into her eyes, trying to understand what she means.

She blinks, swallowing heavily as she seems to recall something, something from the back of her mind that he can’t decipher.

“I’ll go,” she decides, staring at him now with more confidence than he expected. “I want to go.”

* * *

They did have to wait until the next morning for the transport carriage to arrive, meaning Finn had to find a way to sleep curled up on a very worn down, sand filled cushion that was propped up against the side of the hut, since there was only one bed in Rey’s little home.

She offered him the bed, but he of course refused, and he could tell she was a little relieved at that. He supposes one’s bed can be very personal to them when you’re in a place like this and it may be your only source of comfort.

Having slept many different places throughout his life, Finn never did get attached to any one particular set of bedding.

They wake early the next morning, Finn feeling rather unbothered by his lack of sleep, knowing it will no doubt catch up to him soon.

Rey was not joking when she said how easy it was to sneak onto the accommodating carriage that rolled through past the sand dunes. In fact, he is almost positive that one of the workers loading up the back noticed them fitted in one of the carriers and simply didn’t mind.

The journey isn’t that rough or even that long, it feels like. And although they don’t speak much the whole way, it’s comforting to have Rey with him. It’s been years since he went on a mission with anyone other than himself, and one starts to feel a bit insane after a few years of that.

Once they arrive in Takodana, Rey suddenly looks like a wide eyed child on Christmas morning.

After they’ve stepped off the carriage and Finn begins looking for the next one to sneak onto, he finds it difficult to keep her moving along with him, seeing as she seems to want to stand and gape at everything around her.

At first, he is quite confused at this, but as he takes a look around the lush, bright green forests that surround the supplies base they’ve arrived at, he remembers the drab, lifeless desert she comes from.

“The air is so… cold,” she speaks, shivering slightly as they kneel behind a brush, waiting for an oncoming carriage that Finn had confirmed was on its way to Exegol. “Is the air this cold everywhere?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Finn replies, feeling quite relaxed at the refreshing temperature after spending all that time in the oxygen vacant air of Jakku. “If you mean can you breathe easier everywhere else, then the answer is yes.”

Thankfully, he is able to get her on the next carriage easily enough, and they are off to the city before Rey can continue to gape at the woods any longer.

Rey finds it hard to keep her head from sticking out of the cargo hold she and Finn are stowed away in for the entire ride to Exegol, a journey that feels as if it takes hours, when it only takes half of one at most.

As soon as the carriage does finally come to its stop, she completely forgets all their efforts at subterfuge, and scrambles out from their hiding place the moment the wheels have ceased turning, crawling out onto the stone streets and staring about her at the large buildings that stand proudly, lining every inch of the glorious city.

It is like being hit with a rough wave of sand that jumps up from the ground whenever a harsh wind would spit through the desert hills. All of a sudden there is so much noise, so many people filtering about, talking merrily with each other, calling things out, trading things, an aroma of the most delicious scents Rey has ever smelled spilling out from every cart and small shop that seems to have steam running out through the rooftop.

Rey knows she is akin to a child wandering aimlessly without their guardian, but she can’t help but simply stare in awe at all the activity around her as her feet carry her with a mind of their own.

The people here are dressed in much finer clothes than she has ever seen, making her rather rough and overprotective attire stand out considerably. Here, men are clothed in bright colored trousers, tunics of fine material, and soft soled shoes, while women are draped in long dresses of soft linen and ornamented sleeves.

She hears Finn behind her, struggling to keep up as she immediately buries herself in the crowd of people, amazed at how kindly they call to each other, how peaceful the many transactions and trades seem to go. All she has ever seen of human interaction is the ever present sneers and mistrusting glares those in Niima Outpost always gave each other, and of course the common brawl that would occur after a particularly harrowing negotiation.

Here, it is as if she is in another world completely. Like she has been transported somewhere far away. That beautiful, happy, peaceful land she has always imagined going to, the one she can only vaguely recall her mother telling her about when she’d cradle her in her arms at night.

The air is still cold, making her body continue to seize up in the internal shiver it has been in ever since they arrived back in Takodana, but she hardly notices anymore. The sheer amount of people and activity and grand buildings towering around her makes her feel a strange sense of comfort. A safety that eases her coldness.

Rey doesn’t know how far she’s walked when she suddenly stops on whatever path she had been going down. Her eyes rise up and up along the giant structure in front of her, a structure with a set of beautiful looking steps that lead to a line of tall doors.

She feels so small once her eyes reach the top of the two striking towers, one slightly shorter than the other and looking to be in the middle of being built. She can see they both house a series of bells that hang stagnant from their perch. She is hypnotized as she gazes up at the strangely poetic looking structure, not knowing what it is inside of her that feels so suddenly… feeling towards the monument.

Someone walks up behind her, not speaking at first as they stare up at the amazing thing as well.

“You should see it at night,” Finn tells her in a voice that mirrors her own reaction. “When everything is dark, and there is nothing but silence… somehow it’s even more magnificent than it is now.”

She turns to look at him briefly before her eyes go back to surveying the unbelievable sight of the busy city streets.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she declares, her head shaking in astonishment.

Surprisingly, this gets a small laugh from him, though it sounds far from delightful.

“I know,” he acknowledges, following her gaze. “You’d almost think everything is as it should be.”

She frowns suddenly as she recalls why he had asked her to come here in the first place.

Turning back to the structure behind her, she finds her heart wanting to cry out, as if in loss.

How could something so beautiful be made into something so evil? The same evil that came for her village to burn it to the ground…

“We should probably go,” she hears Finn start to say, but she’s suddenly distracted by something off towards the corner of the church, someone who glances around briefly before disappearing down a small alleyway.

“Wait,” she tells him quietly, quickly walking toward where the man had disappeared, recognizing the turquoise colored cloth he had over his shoulders, a common fashion the gypsy men in Jakku would wear.

She picks up her pace slightly until she arrives at the alleyway, her heart at first jumping for joy when she sees an entire row of gypsies and scavengers of all ages huddled along the walls.

Most people wouldn’t even recognize who they were, but having been brought up by them for most of her life, she would be able to identify them anywhere.

But her spirits soon sink when she sees the state they all seem to be in.

It is well known that there aren’t many places gypsies or scavengers are welcomed with open arms, leaving very few places where they can thrive. But what Rey sees before her now is a thousand times worse than anything was back in Jakku.

There isn’t a single person before her that doesn’t look starving, shivering, or nursing what looks to be some injury or illness. They look like mere ghosts, their faces expressionless as the man who had just walked through sits down beside a woman who looks to be of similar age but made out of nothing but frail skin and bones, and the two of them begin counting out a bucket of coins he brought with him.

She stands there for a painfully long amount of time, seconds away from running down to each of them to try to help in any way she can, before she feels a pair of gentle, hesitant hands pulling her back.

“Let’s go,” Finn tells her quietly, his eyes worried as he quickly leads her away, back towards the far more inviting crowds of the city.

“Finn,” she whispers quietly, still in shock from the horror she had just seen.

“I know,” he nods, still pulling her away. “I didn’t… I hoped you wouldn’t see that-”

“They’re starving!” she exclaims, digging her feet into the ground and pulling away from him enough to turn and look him in the eyes. “Why aren’t they being helped? Why don’t they have homes to go to, where is their-”

“No one will give them homes, Rey,” he tells her, his face somber as he looks like he really would rather not speak of this at the moment. “Things are different here than in Jakku. There are laws against… they can’t live like everyone else. They could be arrested or worse if they…”

“What, if they live as everyone else?” she demands, her outrage boiling over. “Why are they so different from any other living being? Even in Jakku they live richer than this!”

She feels a suddenly spiteful hate in her heart to whomever rules this land, whoever made this far reaching rule that her people are to be handled and ignored in this way.

“And people wonder why we have to steal and resort to demeaning manners just to live,” she hisses, her words directed at something far from here. “Because we’re given no other choice.”

“I know,” Finn repeats, his sorrow genuine, though Rey knows that no one can really understand unless they’ve been forced to experience such atrocities. “That’s part of why we’re doing what we’re trying to do. We want to stop all of this, everything that is trying to erase and destroy things and people… people like you. Most of the scavengers and gypsies in this area have joined the Resistance, mostly because we give them a slightly better place to live.”

At this, Rey looks over at him, startled by his words. He looks at her earnestly, his eyes hopeful as she can tell he’s trying to make her understand, to see what good is trying to be done.

She feels the sudden rush of anger begin to subside a bit as she comes to her senses and the shock of the sight in the alley begins to lessen.

“I’m sorry,” she nods, shaking her head slightly as her eyes fall closed. “I didn’t mean to shout.”

“It’s alright,” he replies after a moment. “You’re right.”

“I didn’t know you did that,” she says, her tone thoughtful as she considers the amazing generosity this Resistance seems to have that everyone else she’s come across seems to be lacking.

“We take anyone in who asks,” he tells her. “We may not have all the means, but we do what we can. And they always end up fighting with us if we do.”

Rey nods, smiling a bit, though her heart feels heavy still.

She begins wandering back towards the steps splayed out before the church, as if they were reaching toward her, offering a place of comfort that she is more than happy to indulge in.

Sitting herself down upon the steps, she feels as if a wave of calm has instantly washed over her. Something peaceful takes over her mind, putting her at ease, relieving her of her troubles.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

“I have to report back soon,” Finn tells her, walking up towards her as she sits, staring out at the bustling city. “Are you ready to go?”

“Do you mind… could I maybe come later?” she asks, feeling a sudden unexplainable anxiousness come over her. “I just… I think I’d like to explore a bit on my own. Just for a little while.”

Finn looks at her worriedly, glancing up towards the sky.

“It will be dark soon,” he tells her, as if that was answer enough. But she just shrugs, her face lightning as she looks up at him.

“You told me it’s lovely at night,” she reminds him. “I’d like to see it.”

He looks like he absolutely doesn’t want to, but he can no doubt see the decision in her eyes. There is no way she has come all this way, away from the endless seeming desert that has been the only home she has ever known, to not explore this amazing new place.

So after telling her to meet him back here in front of the church in no less than one hour and giving her one more unsure look, he turns away and is off, soon disappearing in the mess of people walking in every direction.

Chapter Text

Kylo did not have to wait long after their return to Exegol before being reprimanded for his aberration. There was no need for one of the servants or students to nervously approach him with their knees buckling and their voices quivering to tell him to report to the archdeacon’s office. Kylo had known to go there the moment he stepped back into the church.

That is where he stands now, so silent that he dares not breathe a single breath, his body so still he may as well be one of the statues decorating the cathedral.

Hux has not said a word to him for what feels like hours. Kylo knows he is well aware of his presence and the situation that needs to be addressed. Years ago, he would have spoken up, asked what he was supposed to do, or at least cleared his throat in an attempt to break the tension and get over with what needs to be done.

He had learned the hard way to always keep his mouth shut until Hux is ready to acknowledge him.

After an insurmountable stretch of time, the man at the large, bronze colored desk before him finally leans away from the many scrolls and parchments he had been pouring over and signing off on to sit back in his chair, his hands folded neatly together as he stares into nothing, a troubled look on his face.

“Are you ungrateful of us, Ren?” his voice finally breaks the agonizing silence.

“No, sir,” he answers immediately, biting his tongue that wants to spill forth a slew of excuses and apologies.

“Do you often find yourself yearning to disgrace the name of this church?”

“No, sir.”

Kylo’s palms shake as he balls his hands into tight fists, his nails digging prominently through the tough leather of his gloves. Hux rises from his seat, his eyes still purposefully keeping away from him.

“And do you… pride yourself on betraying your vow to God?”

The words are like a quick stab of ice that makes him shiver in unspeakable fear.

“No,” he answers, his tone much less strong and clear than it had been before, making his voice come out weak and pathetic behind his intimidating visor.

Hux’s narrowed, penetrating eyes finally jab towards him, making him stand even straighter.

“I find that very difficult to believe,” he concludes.

He turns away and continues slowly pacing away from him while Kylo stands helplessly in front of the desk, his mind frantically searching for what he is supposed to say, if he is supposed to say anything.

“I think you are careless,” Hux continues, staring off at one of the large crucifixes decorating the wall. Kylo keeps his eyes down on the floor. “I believe you do not comprehend the consequences your irresponsible and, frankly childish behavior has on us all.”

Hux turns back to look at him again from across the room, making Kylo feel somehow smaller, wanting to shrink down and curl in on himself.

“Do you realize that you have been made into a prime example of the power and reach of this church? Has it seeped into your awareness that we have put all of this effort into your growth and training so that you may serve God in the way He commands?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You were chosen by God, by the prophet. You were granted salvation because you have a chosen soul, Ren. And yet you disgrace us all by engaging in the filthy, unholy acts displayed by heathens?”

Again, Kylo wants to relay a string of denials and pleas for forgiveness. But he gnashes his teeth together and curls his fists tighter.

“Have you anything to say for yourself?”

Kylo lets out a small breath he had been holding, feeling himself shake in a mixture of relief at finally having a chance to defend himself, and the fear of what his ultimate judgement will be.

“I was foolish and weak,” he speaks, the words easy to muster up, having them repeated at him and repeated within his own head all too many times before. “I’d forgotten my discipline and I let the heat and confusion of the day get to me. I didn’t think to… to…”

“To stop yourself before displaying yourself in such a vulgar manner?” Hux completes for him as Kylo feels like slapping himself for only taking a few seconds to stumble on his words.

They are both silent again while Hux slowly paces back towards the desk, his hands moving to fold behind his back while Kylo waits to hear what his punishment will be, hoping this is the end of the verbal chastisement.

A knock on the door makes Kylo’s insides jump up to his throat, but he thankfully keeps himself composed on the outside, just barely uttering a small exhale of annoyance that Hux hopefully does not hear.

“I will think on this,” he tells him, sitting back down at his desk with casual ease, completely opposite of the turmoil boiling under Kylo’s skin. “And I will be speaking with Palpatine about your indiscretion if I feel the need to.”

Kylo tries not to shudder in shame and fear at the ominous half promise, but he has no time to even think to argue against it.

“That will be all.”

Kylo makes sure he is standing straight and sure when he goes to exit the room, not wanting to give whoever is waiting outside any other impression than the menacing and deadly aura he extends toward anyone who dares look upon him.

* * *

Rey sits at the foot of Notre Dame for a few moments longer before deciding to go look through more of the city.

She has been alone all her life, and one day of being about with someone is already making her feel a little strange. It’s nice, but… strange. So she does want a while to simply walk about by herself before she meets a whole slew of new people. Especially with the sandstorm of emotions that have been thrown upon her today.

As she grazes about the streets, looking at this and that, still marveling at how differently people act and how much more… clean everything seems to be, she fails to notice the large cloud passing overhead until a sudden sheen of light rain begins falling down.

She’s practically frozen in her tracks when the water from the sky hits her, her mouth opening in shock as she feels her hair instantly wet, her clothes dampen as the droplets grow more intense by the second.

Everyone scurries all around her, crying out in shock and annoyance as they try rushing indoors, getting all of their goods in a safe, dry place. The women scream as they throw their light scarves over their heads to protect their hair, and Rey tries to refrain from laughing at the silly people.

She finds herself gasping at the pleasantly odd splash of water, feeling it drench over her as if she had jumped into a waterhole.

The streets eventually clear out enough so that she is free to move about as she pleases, spinning and laughing in slightly delirious happiness as she feels the water sprinkling against her skin, looking like pure magic falling from the clouds. She knows there are a number of eyes gawking at her, no doubt thinking her to be absolutely mad, but she feels she can’t even see them.

She kicks and splashes as water gathers in the cobblestone below her feet, skipping around in circles, dancing through the showers of water distorting the sky and the once humming city around her.

Time passes in a blur as she moves about in the rain, until she eventually finds herself in an unknown stretch of pathway leading down an array of crooked looking buildings.

She only recognizes that she may be slightly lost once the rain stops and she is standing in nearly complete darkness with wet hair and damp clothes.

Shaking her head slightly at her childishness, she begins heading down the pathway, towards the direction she came down, hoping she will somehow be able to retrace her steps and follow the same way she got down here.

Thankfully, the aid of lights glowing dimly from open windows all around her helps to diminish the darkness that has so suddenly taken hold of the entire city. And she has to admit, everything does seem somehow all the more brilliant in the silence and absence of other people. The grandiose city is now simply humming with a silent elegance that speaks for itself.

Still, the unfamiliar territory and the elongated shadows cast along the stone pathway gives Rey a sudden spike of uncertainty that she hasn’t felt in many years.

Living in the rough circumstances of Jakku with no one but herself to watch out for her, she has grown accustomed to defending herself from the numerous thugs that liked to linger in the empty junk yards and sand dunes she had to walk through to get home every night. She knows how to handle herself expertly in such situations. But this… this is a place filled with an entirely different set of dangers, ones she has yet to come across, much less know how to fight against.

Every sound that echoes through the harrowing alleyway sends her skin crawling, giving her the feeling that she needs to constantly turn in every direction as she feels as if something could be sneaking up behind her. It is a new sensation she takes an immediate disliking to.

Despite her instinctual worries, something in the back of her mind persists in reminding her that these silly fears are all in her mind, that there are no phantoms or ghouls sneaking all around her, ready to pounce on her from out of the shadows. Usually, such thoughts are reasonable, helping one to keep a clear head before extracting themselves from an ultimately harmless situation.

But this time, she soon finds she had been right in feeling suspicious.

The dark figure that bounds out from behind the corner she had just been about to turn is enough to send her leaping backwards, her heart frozen in her chest along with her screams.

It looks at first to be a mere shadow that charges toward her, and Rey believes for one horrid moment that some inhuman creature is about to devour her right here in the street.

But something flashes in the dim light as he moves toward her, something silvery, metallic, coming from the head of the black mass.

Before she has time to contemplate whatever this thing is, a pair of arms, similarly cloaked in complete blackness, jut out from the shadowy form to wrap around her waist.

Now she screams, as if the strong touch of the assailant unleashed her primal instinct.

“Help!” she cries at the top of her lungs, twisting around in the figure’s grasp, kicking and flailing her limbs to grasp at something or to wriggle herself free.

But her attacker lifts her right off her feet, his painfully strong arms locked tight around her ribs and her waist as he walks off down towards the darkened street where he appeared from.

“Let go of me!” she screams, trying her best to recall her tough, fearless exterior she’d put on whenever fighting away any attackers she encountered in Jakku. But try as she might, nothing but cold dread fills her as this inhumanly strong thing continues carrying her off into the darkness, completely unaffected by her screaming or fighting, determined to take her who knows where to do who knows what.

When pounding her fists against his arms doesn’t work, her eyes desperately scan along the rapidly passing walls as he continues dragging her away, but in the darkness and through her panic, she can hardly see a thing.

In blind distress, she reaches her arms out as far as she can, feeling her hands scrape along the rough exterior of the buildings, thrashing her palms along to grasp at anything, praying her fingers will graze across something that will save her.

Amazingly, it takes little time for a significantly sized dip in the aged stone to provide exactly what she was hoping for.

Her screaming ceases as both of her hands grasp the edge of the dip, getting a good enough grip to stop the kidnapper in his tracks as she gains enough leverage to pull away from him slightly.

She hears him grunt in surprise as he’s yanked to a halt, though the sound is muffled, as if there is something covering his face.

Using his staggered state to her advantage, Rey pulls herself as hard as she can, a roar tearing through her throat as she strains against his bruising grasp, feeling her hips slide out from his arms slightly, encouraging her to keep going, sure that she can haul herself out of his hold.

He soon regains himself though, and one arm leaves her waist to reach out towards her arms, yanking them away from the wall in one movement.

She screams again, this time mostly in frustration as she relentlessly begins kicking her booted feet against the legs of her aggressor.

He at least stops moving enough to try to properly regain his hold on her again as she writhes away from him.

“Please,” a voice suddenly strains out in that same muffled tone from the man holding her.

She stops her movements completely at the sound of the desperate voice, her eyes wide with confusion and shock at how… vulnerable the single word sounded. As if he were the one being dragged off into the night.

They are both still now, for just a short moment, Rey breathing heavily as she stares into the darkness, feeling the arms around her loosen ever so slightly.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice speaks out in a hushed whisper, their arms beginning to tighten around her again, pulling her back and making her strain against them. “Please, we have to hurry-”

“Rey!”

A figure suddenly comes into view from the end of the alley, a figure that instantly breaks into a full run towards them, making both Rey and her attacker glance up.

“Help!” Rey calls again, glorious relief flooding through her at the sound of multiple pairs of feet marching towards them, following where she now sees Finn rushing towards her.

She finally kicks herself out of the man’s grasp, feeling Finn’s hands close around hers, pulling her away and safely into his arms.

“What is going on here?” a voice demands as the numerous pairs of feet stomp around them, surrounding the three of them.

“You saw it!” Finn demands as Rey turns to look towards where her dark robed assailant is slowly backing away, his head turning this way and that. “He attacked her! Arrest him!”

Rey’s mouth hangs open in stunned disbelief as she recognizes the tall, imposing masked man who currently looks like a frightened animal caught in an inescapable net.

She also recognizes the man on horseback who looks sternly between the three of them as one of the men who had been in Jakku. One that had attacked Niima Outpost.

Everyone is oddly silent. Rey feels as if the circle of guards are unsure of what to do, and she wonders briefly if she should speak up. But something tells her to stay silent, that her words won’t do anything to make the situation better.

The Captain on the horse, obviously the head of the police, nods to a few of the guards, who then immediately run up to the masked man and restrain him.

“Kylo Ren,” the Captain speaks, his voice sounding almost hesitant, but still wrought with authority. “Have you attempted to harm this young woman?”

“Captain Pryde,” a voice speaks out before the man can answer, causing everyone to turn and see the figure suddenly walking up towards the group, slinking out of the shadows as if he had been waiting there this entire time, watching them.

Rey’s eyes widen as she recognizes the red haired man that had also been in Jakku along with the other two men.

“Archdeacon,” the man on the horse quickly bows his head, as the other guards do as well. “Forgive me… Ren has been caught attacking this young woman.”

Rey gets a strange feeling of wanting to curl up against Finn as the archdeacon’s pointed gaze scans over to her.

His face is unchanging as he looks at her before turning back toward the Captain and the masked man. Kylo Ren.

Though his mask covers every inch of his features, Rey sees him leaving forward slightly against the soldiers that hold him back, and she could swear he seems to be staring at the red haired man almost in a pleading way. Begging for something.

But whatever it is, the archdeacon seems completely unaffected by it. In fact, Rey can almost see a hint of a glare in his sharp eyes, but it’s gone in a second.

“How do you suggest we proceed, sir?” the Captain asks, to which the man merely shrugs, his eyes still on the masked man.

“If Ren has done such a crime, he must be punished,” the archdeacon decides. “You must proceed with the required procedures.”

The Captain nods, turning back to his guards and ordering them to take the masked man away.

He goes without fight, though stumbling a bit as he is pulled away with the guards, looking stunned.

The red haired man doesn’t waste another moment lingering either, immediately sweeping off from where he had come, and Rey loses sight of him quickly.

“Don’t worry,” Finn breathes in relief as he holds her comfortingly, his tone welcomingly gentle. “They’ll punish him… even he can’t get away with…” He seems to shake away whatever he had been going to say, quickly looking her over. “Are you alright?”

She tries not to squirm awkwardly in his hold, though it certainly feels reassuring after the steel grip the masked man had her in. It’s been so long since anyone has held her in an attempt to calm her, so to feel another’s body so close to hers… she feels a strange sense of embarrassment.

“I’m fine,” she assures him, giving a small smile to try to convince him. “He didn’t hurt me.”

She doesn’t know why she feels the need to inform him of that, but something inside her wants it to be said.

“You weren’t at the steps, so I came looking for you, and I… I heard you screaming-”

“He didn’t do anything, Finn,” she tells him, stepping away from him slightly but putting a hand against his arm. “Don’t worry. You and the guards arrived just in time.”

She laughs, shaking her head and wondering if she is feeling a bit hysterical or just wants Finn to get that horribly worried look off his face.

“Honestly, I’m… I’m a bit embarrassed. Usually I can handle myself just fine without any help at all.”

“Things are different here,” Finn replies, the look unfortunately remaining on his face. “There are certain people here that… you just need to be careful.”

He reaches his hand out to clasp around hers. It’s a strange sensation, holding someone’s hand. Something about it feels so… secure.

“We should go,” he tells her, glancing up at the starry sky briefly before beginning to pull her down the direction that will supposedly lead them out of this alleyway. “We need to get somewhere safe.”

Chapter Text

It is more dark and empty streets that Finn leads her down, but that same air of terror does not ring through her this time. There is something about Finn that is warm and truthful, an innocence maybe that encourages her to trust him.

She almost forgets entirely about her nervousness of being introduced to the people that make up this Resistance. She never asked and Finn never told her, but when she pictures the sort of people in charge of a something like this, she imagines citizens of much higher stature that she, people who will look down on her skinny form and ratty clothes and wonder how a desert rat is going to help them overthrow an empire.

Of course, if they are the sort of people who welcome in gypsies and scavengers from off the streets, why should she be intimidated?

What she does find out, as Finn takes her to a small, unassuming building that turns out to be abandoned, is that the Resistance is indeed underground. Quite literally.

Rey almost looks at Finn in shock as he goes to some sort of latch on the floor in the empty house and clicks it open with an odd flick of his wrist, before lifting up, revealing a hidden door in the wood floor.

“What is that?” she whispers, afraid to raise her voice as if someone might be nearby. He turns toward her and gives a small grin of surprise.

“You’ve never seen a trapdoor before?”

She shakes her head, her eyes wide with fear, but also burning curiosity as she looks down into the pitch black abyss that door seems to have opened to.

“This is only one of a few ways in,” he explains as he suddenly sits upon the ledge circling the blackness before pushing himself right down in, making Rey gasp much too loudly.

But he seems to have only landed a few feet below the surface, because his hand is soon reaching out towards her.

Smiling both in excitement, and at her own foolishness, she takes ahold of his hand before holding her breath and leaping down into the darkness until she has landed right beside him, safe and sound.

“That is unbelievably intimidating,” she informs him, though she’s not quite sure if she is looking at him, given that whatever passageway they’ve landed in seems to be completely devoid of any light.

She stares uncertainly at the darkness surrounding her while Finn jumps up to grab the handle on the opposite side of the strange floor door and swings it closed, taking away the last remnant of light that had been coming in from above them.

“This way,” she hears him speak with an unflinching confidence that calms her as he takes her hand again. “You just have to walk straight for a while and light will come.”

“How do you know which way is straight?” Rey mumbles, not having time to try to figure that out for herself before Finn is whisking her away deeper into the abyss.

She tries to decipher what it is beneath her feet, but they are walking so fast, she doesn’t have time to properly feel it out underneath her boots. She decides upon dirt for the time being, although some of it feels far too rough to be any kind of soil she knows.

Soon enough, the glint of a distant light slowly emerges from far away in the darkness after she and Finn have walked for at least a hundred steps. Indeed, it is a relieving sight. It isn’t a dreadfully long walk, but it does become a bit frightening when there is nothing but complete shadows in front of you that you simply keep walking deeper and deeper into.

“We’re close now,” Finn promises as they come close enough to the light to see it is one of a line of small torches that light up the remainder of the passageway.

Sure enough, the cold, dirt and stone walls that look as if they are beginning to erode away, begin to turn into much sturdier looking architecture, with many open doorways and frames leading into a variety of rooms, all empty at first, until they get further and further down the hallway, and suddenly there are a flurry of people, walking in from this room and that, running every which way with their hands filled with scrolls and crates and a whole matter of things one would need to run a Resistance, Rey supposes.

Finn slows his pace now, which she is thankful for since it gives her an opportunity to further stare at the strange people who seem to completely ignore that they are there, as they hop around them while crossing the hall to whichever room they are headed to.

“Your impressed expression is giving me great hope,” Finn tells her as he glances back at her with a grin.

“I had no idea everything would be so… this…”

“Organized?” he questions. “Did you expect a huddle of beaten down refugees?”

“I didn’t expect this,” she professes, her eyes wide in wonder as she turns her head from side to side, trying to keep track of every person she sees.

As it turns out, it was indeed a mixture of dirt and rock beneath her feet, spliced in with what remained of whatever stone floor had once been paved way down here.

Finn releases her hand as he turns and leads her into the room he had apparently been heading towards, one that is occupied by a small group of men, one of whom Rey immediately recognizes to be a gypsy.

“Poe,” Finn speaks, stepping up towards one of the men and gently touching his hand against his elbow.

The man turns a set of deep brown eyes on him, a brief look of solace going through them before quickly being replaced by an intense, serious gaze.

“Finn,” he answers in a voice Rey would think would belong to a refined general. “Was your mission successful? You’ll have to give the full report sometime tomorrow, we were just about to-”

“I’ve brought back someone,” Finn answers, his voice sounding incredibly proud, as if he were eager to tell this man of the single young woman he brought here from the desert.

With that statement, every pair of eyes in the room is now fixated on Rey, and she instantly feels as if she wishes to shrink against the wall.

“That you did!” the gypsy man suddenly breaks out into a grin, speaking loudly before anyone else can, and walking away from the table they are all hovering nearby to walk straight up to Rey, his hands coming down on her shoulders.

She supposes some might find it a startling gesture, but there is something so familiar and inviting about the man, that she finds herself beginning to return his grin.

“Where’re you from, miss? That desert?”

“You’ve come from Jakku?” the man Finn had been speaking to asks, suddenly jumping up and coming towards her as well, his eyes wide and eager. “Are there others? Which part is she from?”

“Now now Dameron, ease up on the poor lass,” one of the other men speaks out with a funny accent Rey has never heard before. “Look at ‘er, poor thing’s soakin’ wet and looks like she could use a drink and a decent meal ‘fore she’s ready to take on your interrogation.”

“Is it raining up there already?” the fourth man asks, glancing up at the dirt roof as if it were a window he were trying to gaze through.

“Someone get the poor thing something to dry off with!” the gypsy man hollars as he begins leading her out of the room while Finn rushes to keep up with them and Rey glances around in confusion. “I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve been looking for a good reason to have a celebration, and a new arrival seems the right ticket to me!”

“Now, there’s an idea!” the man with the odd accent cheers in agreement as the gypsy man leads her back out into the hallway. “When’s the last time we had a welcome party, eh Dameron?”

The man guiding her down the hall walks up to her side, his hand against her back.

“One look at you, and I can tell you’ve been brought up by the gypsy families out there in Jakku,” he tells her quietly as the sound of the men talking rapidly follows behind them. “Would I be correct?”

“You would,” she confirms, smiling shyly down at the ground.

“Ah, then,” he nods to himself, leading her down to the very end of the hallway, where there is a large wooden door that almost blends in with the dirt and rock walls. “You must know of the great rituals performed when one is given great fortune, eh?”

Indeed she does recall the not so rare occasions where great celebrations would be thrown after dark in Niima Outpost whenever the leaders decided there was cause for drinking, dancing and singing.

“I… always thought myself a bit too young for them,” she admits as the man continues leading her through the corridor. “There is no gypsy blood in me. I’m just a scavenger.”

“Ain’t we all,” the man seems to sigh in consideration as they stop at the door and he reaches to pull it open. “Well, think not of that tonight,” he encourages, grabbing her hand and pulling her in past the wooden door. “Tonight, we rejoice in the addition of another one of our own. And you shall be made to feel right at home, child.”

The man suddenly sweeps away from her, but Rey hardly notices, her attention instantaneously struck by the stunning sight before her.

The room she has been led into is enormous, as if she has stepped into a different structure entirely. The ceiling reaches miles above her head, ridged in a pattern of curves and dips that drop bizarre shadows down into the cave-like structure that is housed with an entire manner of wooden platforms, steps, and frames overhead, as if the entire room had once been a setting for a grand stage where elaborate performances would have been put on.

Placed all throughout the room, from sitting idly on the steps, to swinging their legs off the edges of the beams stretching along overhead, are a variety of people dressed in colorful scarves and flowing shirts that makes Rey feel as if she has been somehow transported back to the market she walks through everyday.

She hears a murmur begin to rise up from the people already in the room, and the array of people who begin to trickle in from out in the passageway, a murmur that in no time turns into a celebratory cry once everyone realizes a party is about to take place.

“I don’t believe this,” Rey whispers to Finn as he stands silently beside her, though she is unable to tear her eyes away from the wondrous sight to look at him. “They are all…”

“As important as any of us,” Finn confirms as more people rush in from the outside. Only a handful of them greet her, though it goes so fast that the introductions are hardly sufficient, and everyone else seems simply overjoyed that there is something to celebrate, regardless of what it is. Though Rey is by no means offended by this. She couldn’t be more happy to be seeing all of this, to be here, amongst these people that have become hers, without a question or doubt from anyone. Simply because they could tell who raised her, where she came from, she is somehow instantly accepted.

She turns her head when she hears a sigh coming from beside her, seeing the man Finn had been talking to walk up on her other side, looking out at the huge crowd that has somehow instantly formed in the cave-like room.

“Not exactly the welcome I had in mind,” the man says as they all observe the large room full of rowdy people scattering about in every direction, “but a welcome nonetheless.”

He turns to Rey, extending his hand, which she turns and takes tentatively.

“Poe Dameron,” he introduces himself, giving her a wide grin that immediately makes her understand that he must be some kind of leader here. Or if he isn’t, he should be. “And… apparently, this is all for you.”

He gestures about the amazing room, seeming to shrug indifferently.

“I suppose everyone could use a nice night off,” he relents before turning back to her and snatching up her hand again. “And what better way to introduce you to the Court of Miracles?”

Rey immediately takes a liking to the odd name, feeling it fits perfectly with the wondrous, underground hideout these people seem to have created.

Someone from somewhere suddenly hands her a blanket that she can finally dry herself off with, but she hardly has time to stand still as she is pulled into a delightful mess of dancing, drinking, and singing.

The voices of hundreds chanting in cheerful commemoration echo off the tall walls of the cave as Rey finds herself accepting a delightfully warm, slightly bitter drink, before dancing and laughing breathlessly amidst a group of gypsies bellowing out the words to a whole manner of traditional songs mixed in with lyrics that sound entirely their own.

They dance and drink, chanting out old legends about their sacred Court of Miracles, where the impossible is made to come true, where the true sanctuary for all living souls lies.

Even Poe, as reluctant as he initially had seemed, enjoys the boisterous festivities that go on for hours and hours until Rey has no clue whether it is night or day outside. In this moment, nothing exists beyond this little world, this world where she somehow finds herself in, a world so vastly different from hers, but where she somehow feels right at home.

“Oy!” someone calls out in the middle of what has to be the twentieth song and dance. The hollar had come from a young woman sitting atop one of the beams up above the wooden platforms. “Where’s that young man that brought us our new arrival?!”

Rey glances around where a group of people have somehow found Finn amidst all the madness, pulling him forward until he is standing beside Rey, who smiles at him excitedly, feeling rejuvenated with a fresh new energy after all the dancing and drinking.

Finn on the other hand looks rather flushed.

“They’re a cute couple, ain’t they?”

“Look how bashful e’s gettin’ round her!”

“Ay, how ‘bout we marry ‘em!” someone else calls out, resulting in a thunderous cheer that waves through the room.

Rey laughs again, very familiar with the custom of a very improvised and very unofficial wedding between two people at parties such as these. Finn however looks even more sheepish than he had before.

They are both pulled over towards one of the platforms, where more people grab their hands and yank them up until they are standing atop the makeshift stage, positioned in front of each other while a man with a large pot stands before them.

She notices that Finn looks terribly confused, turning this way and that, his eyes wide and frightened looking, and she realizes he probably has no idea what is going on, but it would be quite difficult for her to try and quickly explain it to him now.

“Do you miss, take this man for your husband to protect and keep close to your heart for the rest of your days?” the man holding the pot asks in a slightly drunken voice as a wave of cheers and laughs radiate from their captive audience.

“I take him to be mine,” Rey recites the traditional response, smiling and laughing lightly, trying to calm Finn’s nervousness with her gaze, but he obviously still isn’t picking up on what is happening.

“And do you sir take this woman for your wife to protect and keep close to your heart for the rest of your days?” he now asks Finn.

His eyes move rapidly between her and the man before them, his breathing quick and heavy as he looks as if he is desperately trying to decide something within his mind, as if he were making the most important decision in his life, a decision that will affect the weight of the entire world.

“I… do?” he answers, almost in a whisper as his eyes suddenly gaze into hers with a look so intense, she feels she wants to reassure him that this is simply a classic gag done at common celebrations between couples or close friends, and not a binding tradition.

The man looks a bit confused at first, but then shrugs.

“Eh, works for me!” he announces to another round of cheering as he hands the large pot off to the two of them.

Rey places her hands on either side of it, nodding encouragingly at Finn who begins to hesitantly raise his arms, until his hands are holding it as well.

Lifting the pot up into the air, pulling Finn’s hands along with it, she uses all of her strength to slam it down until it shatters against the ground with a loud crack that she is satisfied to hear reverberate slightly off the walls.

Finn jumps back in surprise while the room breaks out into the loudest roar yet, as if the splintering of the pot released something impossibly exciting into the air.

She continues to laugh and smile encouragingly at Finn, who looks as if he is moments away from curling into himself.

Sensing his embarrassment, she quickly takes his hands in hers in an attempt to get him to relax as the crowd around them erupts once more into a fit of chanting and singing.

They leap back down from the platform, and she pulls Finn along with her into the crowd of people, dancing along with them, twirling and jumping as she laughs, finally getting him to crack a smile that slowly begins to light up across his face as he joins in dancing with her, though it mostly consists of jumping around here and there, since there isn’t much room to do anything else.

More drinks come, and Rey feels more and more elated with each sip. She never drank much before. A sip here and there perhaps, to calm her nerves or injuries after a particularly grueling day, but never to this extent.

There are countless amounts of people that come up to her and congratulate her on joining them, or on her very recent wedding, but particularly on her dancing.

“You move in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen,” one woman says to her when Rey has sat herself down in an attempt to get at least a few seconds of rest. “You’d be a hit at the festival.”

“Festival?” Rey asks, turning to look at her questioningly as she curls her hands around the warm drink in her hands. “You have festivals in Exegol?”

“Course!” the woman exclaims. “One of our biggest ones is comin’ up in just a couple of days. Dancing, magic shows, tricks, you name it.”

“In the streets?”

“Of course, where else?”

Rey turns back to look thoughtfully out over the crowd, feeling a new wave of hope go through her.

“I didn’t realize such things were allowed here,” she expresses, blinking in amazement, and feeling eager to participate in a familiar event.

“They got all kinds a strict laws ‘round here that we never follow,” the woman tells her shrugging as if it were no true threat. “If we did, we might lose our heads, don’t ya think? We gotta have something to look forward to in all this madness.”

The woman reaches out a hand that pats reassuringly on her knee.

“Don’t you worry, miss,” she nods knowingly as Rey turns back to face her. “We’ll dress ya up, give ya some admirable adornments. Make all the men in the city go crazy, trust me.”

Rey smiles bashfully, though unable to deny her interest in such an event.

After all, if she is no warrior or refined speaker, perhaps she can show her support for the Resistance through something she does know how to do well.

Chapter Text

Rey has no idea how long the celebration lasts. It almost feels like days, but for all she knows, time no longer exists in the Court of Miracles.

She eventually finds Finn again when the crowd begins to calm somewhat, and asks if they can step away for a moment, to which he eagerly agrees.

He shows her a secret entrance along the cave walls that she wouldn’t have even noticed had he not pointed it out, and she is shocked to find that it leads them outside.

The air is cold and startling at first, but she finds it sort of relieving, despite the shiver that once again begins to ache through her. The cool breezes that would occasionally rumble through the desert on a cold night would be heavenly to her, as if her body had been yearning for the refreshing cold after hours upon hours spent scavenging through the junkyards to earn her food for the day. But the ever present cold that seems to dwell through every other part of the world is almost painful at some times.

They seem to have come out somewhere that looks nothing like the city, though they can’t be far from it. It is an edge of a cliff, looking over something obscured by the darkness, surrounded by a handful of trees that feel as if they cloak her and Finn from the rest of the world.

“Is everything you do so amazing?” she asks, gazing around the new setting in awe as he chuckles, leaning up against one of the trees and looking up at the sky.

“I can’t say it is,” he admits. “But you… you do make it seem all the more exciting.”

She takes a moment to follow where his eyes are looking before grinning to herself and turning back to face him.

“Well then,” she sighs as she steps closer to where he is standing, leaning up against another tree beside him. “I think perhaps you should tell me more about yourself. We are married, after all.”

He grins bashfully, staring down at his feet.

She could gather that, throughout the past couple of hours, he had realized their little wedding had simply been a jest.

“I’m really no one special,” he speaks, though she can sense by the sound of his voice that he wishes to tell her more.

“We’re all special,” she disagrees, shrugging as she looks back up at the stars. They look so similar to how they do in Jakku. “I for one have never met two people alike.”

She waits patiently, unwilling to yield her request until he answers, which he begins to eventually.

“I’m… I used to be a writer,” he tells her, his voice suddenly sounding much different than she’s ever heard it before just with those few words. “Before it was banned, I used to write everyday. I didn’t realize how much it fulfilled me until it was taken away.”

Rey leans forward with interest, able to feel this strong passion from the way he speaks, unfamiliar with such an emotion towards something that never crossed her mind before.

“What did you write?” she asks.

“Anything,” he answers, looking up to meet her gaze and giving a small smile that doesn’t reach the entirety of his face. “Whatever I saw or felt around me… I’d turn it into a story, or a poem. Then I’d get it printed on the new printing press machine they brought into town and Poe would help me hand them out around the city…”

“You knew Poe?” she asks curiously. “Before the Resistance?”

He turns his face away from her, and she struggles to read his expression in the dark.

“Yes,” he nods, but his voice sounds suddenly distant, making her cock her head slightly, wondering what the reason for his reluctance is.

Whatever it is, she doesn’t have time to ask.

“So that’s what got me to join, mostly,” he continues, turning his head back to look towards her. “And… well, I guess that’s all there is to know about me.”

She smiles at him, moving closer until her shoulder has brushed up against the same tree is leaning against.

“That can’t be all,” she tells him, raising her eyebrows as he smiles shyly, looking down at the ground. “Come on, I want to know everything. Everything about you and your life and your writing and… I don’t know, your favorite foods. Everything.”

He does tell her everything. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t usually speak much about personal things to anyone. Maybe Poe, once upon a time, but that feels like a memory so distant, it may not have even been real.

But she is real. And for some reason, her comforting presence makes speaking the easiest thing in the world. As if he were speaking with someone who he has known since childhood, someone who he somehow trusts completely, while it’s just them, here alone in the darkness, where no one can hear them.

This is part of the reason he intentionally avoids speaking about Poe at all to her.

There is something inside him that feels sick at feeling this way, how much this beautiful woman has lingered in his mind in the short time he’s known her, how much he wants to admit to himself that he feels a bond with her that is somehow more clear than the one he shares with the man he is supposed to be in love with. But it doesn’t stop him from not bringing up the fact that he is spoken for. Truthfully, he hopes the matter will never come up in their conversation. But it does eventually, after they’ve gone over almost his entire life up to this night.

“Suppose tonight was your happy ending?” Rey suggests, her smile suggesting she is joking. “And we were happily married for real, off to live contently until the day we die.”

She nudges him teasingly as he grins to himself, staring down over the edge of the small cliff they’d come to sit on.

“I’m sure I made a complete fool of myself,” he admits, still feeling his face heat up when he remembers not too many hours ago when he had thought he was actually about to be married to someone.

“Oh, it was my fault,” she shakes her head. “I should have told you it was all just good fun. In fact, I’ve seen people do it who go about it simply to declare their undying friendship. It doesn’t even have to do with… you know, that kind of love all of the time.”

He can sense the question coming, and his nerves force him to get there before she can.

“Who… who would you marry?” he asks, struggling not to choke on the words. “I mean, for real. If you were in love with someone for real, who would it be?”

He prays the question doesn’t sound too close to what he really means to ask, but if she notices, she says nothing of it.

Her smiling expression suddenly fades away, melting into something else. Finn worries for a moment he has brought something up that maybe was better left undiscussed, but he is transfixed by the dreamy look that glints through her eyes as she stares up at the stars.

“I used to dream of him every night and every day,” she begins, her voice sounding as far away as her gaze. “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve pictured exactly what he’ll look like and how he’ll come to me.”

“You… haven’t met him yet?” Finn asks her.

“Not yet,” she confesses. “But I feel like I know him. I always pictured him coming down from the clouds. The most handsome man anyone has ever seen. The sun from the desert will glint off his armor as he moves through the sand. Everyone in the market will ogle him, wondering who he is, where he came from. But his eyes will only be on me.”

Finn can’t help but lean back a bit as he continues surveying her.

“You dream of a soldier,” he states in surprise. She seems to almost blush as she nods, before closing her eyes bashfully.

“I know it’s silly,” she sighs. “I know a real soldier would never look at me once, unless it was to hurt me. Maybe in my heart I’m still a bit childish, but… in my mind, he wouldn’t care that I’m nothing much and I come from nowhere. He would be so unable to resist our love, he wouldn’t care who I am and who he is. He would claim me and declare his love no matter who is around or who sees us.”

“That’s how any love should be,” Finn agrees, giving a small smile. “So your dreams aren’t really so unheard of.”

His encouragement seems to put her at ease, and he listens to her speak of her dream soldier. Though it becomes more and more difficult as she describes her knight in shining armor that Finn realizes he is the exact opposite of.

He realizes of course that someone as wondrous as her would never want someone like him. She is wild and fearless, her heart so willing to feel every emotion. Why should she ever look to someone like him with desire? Finn has never felt heroic or unafraid to go after what he wants. Fear and doubt reside deeply in his heart and hold him back from almost every step he has ever wanted to take.

It hurts somewhere deep to know she does not want him. It hurts bad, even though it should not.

Still, it’s that lightness in her eyes, that glimmer of endless hope in her voice that keeps him enthralled when listening to her. She could have been saying anything, and he would be entranced by her words and by how incomparably beautiful she looks here under the stars.

* * *

Kylo doesn’t sleep for a moment all through the night. It’s not only because the cell they threw him in is extremely uncomfortable and rat-infested, or because he feels wracked with naked shame now that his mask and armor have been ripped away. He instead owes a large portion of his sleepless night to the scavenger girl.

Hours he sits, either pacing or gazing out the tiny barred window at the taunting moonlight, wondering where she had gone off to after they took him away, wondering if she is hurt, if he had frightened her too badly. But most of all… he wonders why he had attacked her in such a way and tried to drag her off instead of just talking to her, explaining to her why he had to take her away somewhere no one would see her.

He knows nobody will believe him. Even when the moment comes that the guards barge in through the door the second the sun has risen to drag him off to the courtroom, Kylo has his mind made. He has no defense. He will just have to accept whatever punishment is given to him.

“Kylo Ren,” the judge announces, his eyes squinting at the scroll of paper handed to him by one of the officials while Kylo sits before him, his wrists bound behind his back as he stares down at the ground, determined not to raise his gaze unless ordered to.

He can feel the eyes of the numerous guards and officials surrounding him, all gazing with fascination and smugness, all shocked or pleased to see the infamous Kylo Ren in a position of humiliation rather than fearsome power. It is all the more degrading without the protection of his thick black armor or the mask that sends a bolt of fear through anyone who looks his way.

“You are being charged with assault and attempted kidnapping of a young woman,” the judge continues, sounding as if he'd rather be doing anything else with his morning than this. “Do you deny these accusations?”

His jaw locks. His hands clench, his nails digging into the skin of his palms.

Perhaps he should ask for punishment when he returns to Notre Dame. Punishment for being seen like this, being so weak…

“No,” he grits out, hating himself even more when he feels his face growing red in front of his enamored audience.

“Em hm,” the judge mutters, glancing over the scrolls again.

Kylo closes his eyes, his teeth biting into his tongue as the courtroom drops away and the sound of Hux’s voice fills his ears as it had last night.

“She’s come here,” he had spoke, his tone filled with outrage and slight disgust as he stood in front of the glass window of his office, overlooking the streets that had begun to be dampened by the unexpected rain.

“Who?” one of the priests had questioned, as Kylo had stood just outside the door, moments after being dismissed from his reprimand. The door had been lazily closed behind him, leaving a small crack that allowed a slim line of vision into the office and a perfect gateway to listen in on the would-be private meeting. He didn’t know what had compelled him to linger near the office, standing more still and silent than he had been just a short time ago when he had been on the other side of the door.

“That scavenger girl,” Hux had answered, his voice now wavering with something Kylo couldn’t quite read. “She came back here after we returned from Jakku. Probably stowed away on the carriage, the little sneak.”

Kylo’s breath had stopped, and he had leaned in closer so that his helmet was practically touching against the wood of the door.

“I imagine so,” the priest had replied, sounding rather disinterested. “They do that a lot, I imagine. That’s how they’ve spread so far throughout the country. Them and the gypsies.”

“I’ve been watching her,” Hux continued, his voice sounding distant, as if he hadn’t even heard what the priest had said, or perhaps was no longer aware of his presence. “All day, I’ve been watching her closely. The way she… shamelessly reveals herself, dancing about the streets in those deficient clothes…”

Kylo had never been stricken by Hux’s tone before, though the man would often use a strict voice, with anyone he was talking to. But now, something about the way he speaks sounds… unhinged. As if there were something, for the first time, completely out of his grasp, and it was driving him mad.

“Well, no matter,” the priest had continued, sighing as if he expected them to move on from the issue, “I’m sure Captain Pryde will take her into custody should she create any problems.”

“I have no time to waste on such measures,” Hux quickly states. “I’m taking her myself.”

The priest had gone silent for a moment, and Kylo simply froze, his mind racing uncontrollably as something horrible struck at his chest, giving him the sensation of being sick.

“I’m… sorry?” the priest asked, obviously not believing he had heard correctly either.

“I’m taking her tonight,” Hux told him, his voice returning back to its normal timbre, where it sounds as casual as if he were announcing the day’s plans as he does every morning. “I’m bringing her here. She is a scavenger, a thief, a harlot, but still, she is young. In my care, her soul can be cleansed of her devilish sins.”

It went silent again, and Kylo looked down to see his gloved fists shaking.

“I… have you spoken to Palpatine of this?” the priest questioned, sounding hesitant as if he was not sure if he should voice concern or commend Hux on his plans.

“Palpatine’s council is not needed,” Hux asserted, his confident tone not faltering in the slightest. “This is a simple matter. She will be kept with me, under my care and supervision until her soul is properly healed. He need never know.”

Kylo hadn’t waited to hear him continue, nor to hear the priest’s next reply.

He doesn’t know what had happened within him. It was as if something else entirely was commanding him, guiding his movements, his heart.

He didn’t know why, but he knew he had to get to her first. She wouldn’t want to come here. Hux wouldn’t know any better, he would try to force her. He might hurt her.

Kylo would have to take her himself, take her someplace… he didn’t know where. It’s too dangerous for her here, it’s dangerous for any common scavenger. He had to get her away from here where no one would find her…

She wasn’t evil. She should be, but… he had seen her. She had looked at him, smiled at him. There isn’t anything sinful in her…

Perhaps that was why he had done it. He thought perhaps she is something good, pure. An angel, sent down from heaven. An angel he had to protect.

But he could never say any of this here. Not to the judge, not in this courtroom.

No one would ever believe such accusations about Armitage Hux. That is one luxury Kylo does not share. Especially now that Hux no doubt knows what Kylo had been trying to do last night, what he had been trying to interfere with.

“Kylo Ren,” the judge announces again, snapping him out of his momentary stupor and making him try to remember if the judge had spoken anything directed at him in the last couple of moments. “Since you seem to have no defense nor remorse for your actions, you are to receive fifty lashes this afternoon. In addition, you will be left on display for one hour of public humiliation.”

Chapter Text

Punishments are handed out as quickly as they are given in Exegol, and Kylo supposes he should at least be thankful for that. Rather than spending days waiting in a cell, he is dragged out to the streets in just a few hours, when the sun is at its hottest, and taken to the punishment stand where a crowd has already gathered. Obviously the news of his whipping spread pretty fast.

He knows it’s pointless now to try to hide his face, so he doesn’t attempt to as he is pulled through the crowds of gaping citizens. He knows everyone here couldn’t be more amazed and eager to see him humiliated and beaten down. The man who has stricken so much fear and powerlessness into the hearts of so many.

Now he hears snickers and whispering as he is tied to the whipping carts and the man who will administer the flogging runs his hand hungrily over his tool that Kylo decides not to look too closely at.

The voice of the man announcing his crime and his punishment is muffled in his ears as he kneels in front of the cart he is bound to, keeping his eyes down on the wood beneath him. The sun already feels stifling when they cut his shirt from his back and his bare skin is offered up to the heat.

It isn’t long before a sharp whistle fills the air and fire slices across his back, met with the sound of quiet gasps and murmurs from the gathered crowd. Kylo has been whipped before, but before had at least been within the privacy of the church, and with a weapon far less damaging than whatever is being used now.

Whatever it is, it draws blood the moment it cracks against his skin.

He doesn’t bother counting them in his head, fearing that will only draw it out longer. Instead, he tries to remind himself that this is what he deserves. For going against the archdeacon. For frightening that poor girl. For everything he’s done to everyone currently gawking at him from below the punishment stand.

If they are disgusted or disturbed by the display, they certainly make no effort to look away. Though he realizes, with everything the church has deemed outlawed, there isn’t much for entertainment lately, so something like this is no doubt very exciting, especially considering who is being punished.

He realizes now, as his back is being flayed before these people, that he is no better than any of them. Despite being assured endlessly that God has chosen him to carry out His command, Kylo finds himself becoming more and more convinced everyday that he is somehow different from everyone at the church. He of course would never dare to bring it up to anyone, but everytime he brought his sword down at Hux’s order, he feels as if a part of his soul is being split away from him. It doesn’t matter how much he prays or how much Hux or even Palpatine reassures him that he will be rewarded for his grand service. The thought lingers forever in his mind that he is damning himself more and more each moment.

At least today he feels as if he is receiving some kind of penance. That allows him some solace as he is degraded in front of everyone, brought down to his knees, all that it took to make him realize how similar to them he really is. Powerless.

Hux watches the scene from his office. He can’t help the grin plastered on his lips as he gleefully views Ren receiving his well earned punishment. He had suggested the administrator give him a handful of extra lashings aside from the fifty that are already to be given. If it were completely in his hands, he would give him at least a hundred.

Really, it was a blessing for those guards to show up last night, or else he would have made sure Ren suffered a much worse fate. But surely, the public humiliation and pain-filled afternoon he is about to endure will more than succeed in getting the message through that brainless beast’s thick head.

Why that foolish creature thought he could get in the way of his plans, Hux hasn’t an idea. He noticed of course how oddly Ren had been acting ever since Jakku. He had been rightfully reprimanded after prancing around like a halfwitted cretin at that disgraceful festival. And now this.

It’s no matter, he supposes. Perhaps a spark of rebellion is rising in him, but it will be snuffed out soon enough. It certainly won’t do any good to speak to him about it. Ren knows he is wrong and that he will not get away with such treachery.

He supposes it is not an issue to bring up to Palpatine either. He can keep this under control all on his own. Ren is a coward, he will fall back into line. He will take his punishment and know never to cross him again.

There will be another time for the scavenger girl. So long as she stays here, she won’t evade his grasp for long.

* * *

The lashing does eventually stop, and Kylo is convinced that not counting did indeed help. Of course it still felt as if it went on for hours and he’s nearly passed out a dozen times by now. Honestly, he wishes he would just pass out. Not because of the pain. The pain is tolerable. He’s had much worse, or at least he feels like he’s had. But he can hardly stand another minute of every person in town staring at him.

The crowd had grown significantly. It was as if every time the whip had cracked down upon his skin, someone scuttled out of some building or out from behind a wall, drawn to the town square by the sound of it. And of course, once they learned who it was getting their back torn to shreds for trying to carry a young woman off into the night, everyone had to stay to watch.

It’s so much worse now that the whip has gone silent and the only sound throughout the entire square is the soft tumble of sand in the large hourglass set out on the stand, signifying the long hour he will have to remain tied to the whipping cart. At least before, he could somewhat distract himself with the sharp stings across his back and the sound of the lash cutting through the air.

Now, there is nothing but a painful silence as every pair of eyes gazes upon him as he kneels awkwardly upon the punishment stand while the sun beats down on him relentlessly.

He is sure they made certain that he was positioned wherever the burning of the sun would hit him the worst. The entire time he has been up here, which certainly feels like centuries longer than one hour despite what the hourglass tells, he feels as if the sun has only been growing closer to him.

Sweat pools at his neck, curling down over his shoulder blades and stinging into the edges of his open wounds that ache against the blazing heat. He feels his skin peeling and burning as blood begins to dry and stick to him, making his eyes water.

He tries so hard to keep still, to stay silent and keep his head down until all of this is over. The burning isn’t all that bad after a while, if he tries to ignore it, but there isn’t much else to think about. What really begins to drive him out of his mind is the burning that begins in his throat.

He can’t remember the last time he drank any water. They certainly didn’t give him any while he was imprisoned. Whatever he had before he went out to try to find the scavenger girl, he can’t remember. All he knows is that now, it feels as if a clawed talon is scratching its way back and forth along the inside of his throat, and his mouth feels as brittle and withered as the old parchment he is always given to read from by the priests.

The ropes begin to creak as he pulls his arms from where they are wrenched up and away from his body, feeling his shoulders scream in protest. He can’t imagine how it will feel when they untie him and his arms drop back down to him.

He tries to take a deep breath, but that turns out to be a horrible mistake once his throat feels as if it’s trying to constrict on itself, throwing him into a sudden coughing fit.

The metallic taste of blood stings his throat, so bad that he almost screams at the pain.

Obviously the crowd has begun to notice his discomfort, because laughter starts to grow quietly from the sea of people. It sounds almost nervous at first, as if they still aren’t completely sure if the Kylo Ren they’ve all grown to know well might suddenly burst forth and slaughter them all. But once they grow confident that he will not be moving from the stand, the laughter grows heavier.

Kylo finally wrenches his head up, feeling his neck crack as he stares directly out at the people watching him, viewing him like an entertaining show.

He hasn’t turned his head up for two seconds before a rock comes barreling from somewhere in the crowd, colliding against the side of his face with so much force that it whips his head to the side, slicing a thick line from above his eye, down across his cheek.

A fresh line of hot blood pools from the cut as the crowd roars with laughter. He pulls harder against the ropes, causing the fresh wounds on his back to pull apart, reawakening the pain that had numbed slightly. He blinks rapidly as the blood seeps into his eye. His breathing escalates, making his throat burn more.

He feels himself slipping into blissful unconsciousness as the laughing pounding through his head begins to grow quieter. He closes his eyes, waiting for everything to drop away.

Though the laughter stops, he still feels the sun baking his skin, the hot blood dripping down his face, the agonizing dryness in his mouth.

Oh Lord, why? Why is it taking so long?

Something thumps softly against the stand. Someone walking along the wood. He feels it dip slightly as they stand above him, whoever it is. He wonders if perhaps the hour is up, so he heaves his head up from where it had collapsed against his chest and looks up to see the form hovering above him.

It is like looking up at an angel.

Her small, slender frame towers above him as he kneels helplessly before her, his pain suddenly forgotten as he gazes up at the soft face and frightened eyes looking down at him.

A hood partially covers her features that she slowly removes without taking her eyes from him. The hood is connected to a grey colored shawl hanging from her shoulders, something that a beggar would wear. She had obviously been trying to remain unnoticed.

The effort is wasted now, since every single person standing in the square stays absolutely silent as they watch the scavenger girl that had walked up onto the punishment stand, not giving the matter a second thought. She looks as if she were walking past the threshold of her own home, only to find that someone had brutally destroyed it all in her absence.

Kylo doesn’t know what to think as he watches her slowly step around him. Does she know who he is? Does she remember how terrified he had made her last night? Why should she approach him so fearlessly like this when she knows the reason for his trial?

Nothing but comfort radiates from her as she kneels beside him, and he keeps his eyes on her until she is level with him, or as much as he can with the thick coat of blood dribbling down his face.

He fails to notice she has something held in her hands until she brings it up towards his face. A small dish of some sort filled to the very top with clear water that sways gently as she offers it up to his lips.

He leans forward eagerly, letting her gently pour the contents of the dish down his throat, which feels as if an icy cold wave suddenly soothes its way through his dried up mouth and his burned throat.

His eyes fall closed in ecstasy as she rushes back down to the ground and off to the nearby well to refill the dish.

She walks back and forth several more times, filling the dish all the way to the top every time until Kylo feels his mouth and throat feel close to normal again. He recalls her name as he watches her come and go, her face looking as if it is glowing against the sun.

Rey.

He wants so desperately to speak to her, to thank her, but he feels so out of breath, he can’t even form a single word.

The next time she returns from the well, the dish is filled again and she takes out a small rag from the pouch on her belt.

He stares at her, half mesmerized by her face, and half confused by her gesture, until she dips the rag into the dish of water, wringing it out before she brings it up towards his face.

Kylo leans away instinctually, causing her to pause only for a moment, before slowly touching the cold rag against the cut on his face.

It stings at first. A hiss of pain comes through his teeth as he shuts his eyes tight, feeling the cold water seep into the fresh cut. But after a moment, it feels as if the water-filled rag has settled the burning fire that he had felt rip across his face when the sharp rock was thrown, and he finds himself leaning forward into Rey’s gentle touch.

She wrings out the rag again, letting the mixture of blood and water splash against the wood of the stand before dunking it back into the dish of water and dabbing at the wound once more.

She continues at least until the bleeding has stopped, though Kylo is careful not to shift his facial muscles too much for fear that he will tear it open once more.

After she has tended to his face, she begins to do the same to his back.

He doesn’t want to know the mess the whip has left, but he nearly passes out when she begins to douse it with the cold water and rag. But just as with his face, it begins to feel like the biggest relief he’s ever experienced.

The sharp burn of the sun is no longer felt as she stands in front of it and covers his torn and burnt skin with the chilled water that feels akin to ice. Kylo soon finds himself resting his head comfortably against the cart he is tied to, his eyes closed in bliss as Rey attends to each and every wound on his back caused by the whip or the sun.

By the time she is done, the rag has turned a deep red color.

After tossing the rest of the bloodied water away, she sits herself beside him, shielding him from at least most of the crowd’s view. She still says nothing, but gives a silent promise with her movements that she will remain until he is released.

It isn’t long. Soon all of the sand has run out in the hourglass, and the announcer returns to declare that the punishment has concluded.

Men come to untie Kylo’s arms and Rey slowly begins to rise from where she had been sitting.

His arms drop painfully, sending a sharp ache through his whole body that makes him grit in anguish just as he had predicted.

But a pair of tender hands touch against him, slowly and carefully helping him to his feet.

Kylo already feels the world tilting just from the soft hands holding him, but the world becomes even more crooked once he rises painstakingly off of his knees, having to lean significantly against Rey so that he doesn’t collapse back down onto the stand.

She half-carries him down the steps and onto the ground, leading him over towards the steps of the church.

He marvels at her strength, noticing that she shoulders a lot of his weight quite easily, despite how small she appears. As she holds him, he concludes that her rough grip, stronger than most, is no doubt a result of her living in the desert land she comes from.

He stumbles up the long steps, feeling the welcoming embrace of the familiar cathedral within merciful reach. Rey even reaches out and pushes the heavy door open for him before finally releasing him and letting him limp his way inside after she hands him the torn remnant of his shirt he hadn’t noticed she had thrown over her arm.

She doesn’t follow and he hadn’t expected her to. He hadn’t even expected her to come this far. So, without risking another glance back at her, he lets the door close behind him as he carries himself through the echoing chambers of the church, heading towards the staircase that will lead him up to his quarters.

The pain in his body is unmatched, his face feeling as if the skin wants to peel back off of his skull, and his back feeling as if he has been skinned alive.

But his mind is filled with nothing but warmth and amazement as he heaves his way up the stairs, through the corridor that leads to the bell tower and past the threshold leading to the small corner where his bed sits.

He collapses onto the blankets, making sure to keep the right side of his face safely turned up in the air.

She helped me… she helped me…

Without a single hesitation. No fear of retaliation from the crowd or the guards, both of which had seemed almost too stunned to know whether they should stop her or not. In all the years Kylo has been alive and watching countless punishments take place on that very stand, no one had ever once done what she had done for him.

He can’t fathom it. Any of it. And it keeps him wide awake all throughout the night.

Why? Why would she do such a thing for him?

Chapter Text

The gypsy festivals in Exegol have to be few and far between. They can’t be too grand or too well known. They must happen quickly and under the guise of simple street celebrations, out of the eye of any authority.

Still, the presence of it makes the city ring with a low rumble of excitement, anticipation to finally have something happy to look forward to. A reason to celebrate, to go out and mingle with others, watch entertaining performances by dancers and magicians who have previously hidden in the shadows.

Finn knows that this festival will be different. Because this time, there will be something no one has ever seen.

The gypsies in the Court of Miracles had swept Rey away early this morning to help her prepare for today, and Finn knows she will be the least hesitant of any of them to perform as she pleases, despite the fear of who may be watching.

There is only slight danger, but the guards won’t immediately drag away a beautiful young woman dancing for a crowd of people. They may stop her, warn her from ever doing it again, but they would never risk a possible riot. And there lies the answer to how they will win.

The Resistance is careful about putting subtle instances of rebellion, shoving it in the face of the church, getting the people to rally behind them without even knowing that they are. It is festivals like these that help a great deal in getting more and more people riled up against the freedoms Notre Dame has taken from them.

Indeed, the streets are alight with enthusiasm as decorations hang from carts and open windows, music plays from the small circles created about the street where magicians are showing off their best tricks, and fortune tellers read from crystal balls. The townspeople scurry about, even encouraging their children to play with the animals that are balancing chairs upon their noses and telling people’s fortunes by placing their hooves or paws on tarot cards laid out before them.

Towards the center of the town square, a tent has been set up amidst the largest of the displays. This is where Finn stands, among the crowd of people circled around the large carpet that had been laid out before the tent where a group of gypsy men and women perform a traditional dance with each other to the chime of flutes and drums.

Applause rings out once the dance has finished, and an older gypsy man steps forward, raising his arms up to silence the crowd.

“And now, my friends, I am most pleased to present to you, a young woman performing a dance comparable to none. A scavenger who has the face of a goddess made from the stars. A woman who comes to us from a far away land, where the golden sand has showered most luxurious gifts upon her.”

The crowd already is left oohing and awing in anticipation of seeing this mysterious woman.

“Her beauty, like her dance, will entrance you. She is a beauty like no other, a face with eyes and lips that will bewitch any man who looks upon her.”

A few hollars from the male members of the audience ring out at this promise.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the enchanting Rey of Jakku.”

The man sweeps away, fading into the crowd as a figure runs forward out of the tent and onto the carpet, planting her feet firmly in the center of the makeshift stage, one hand on her hip, the other arm raised in the air, holding a shimmering tambourine.

A shower of cheers greets the young woman who had emerged from the tent, and Finn finds himself struck by the image before him.

He had expected her to dress up of course, as all the performers do on days like this. But the sight that meets his eyes is unlike anything he has ever seen before.

Rey’s hair hangs loose down her back, a handful of it pulled up into a bun behind her head. White beads crown her chestnut hair, glittering in the sun.

A shining gold choker circles her neck, along with a lavender jeweled necklace that sits fittedly against her chest. The jewelry matches the large glimmering belt circled around her waist that flickers with a soft gold hue with lines of sparkles that crawl all the way up to the shoulders of her soft blue dress that reaches down to her bare feet, rippling freely in the light breeze, pulling in at her hips and dipping around her breasts.

The crowd gawkes in awe as she sways slightly to the strong beat of the suddenly intense music that had been so unobtrusive before.

The hand on her hip moves to flick to the beat of the flutes and strings, an assortment of gold bangles shining brightly from her wrist.

She begins moving around in a slow circle, shaking her tambourine along with every hit of the drums, her hips moving in a way Finn has never seen before.

This dance is different from the ones he had seen before in Jakku. There is something darker about her, more ferocious, even more pronounced with the hungered look in her eyes as she gazes upon the audience before her.

She twirls and leaps as she did before, but her body moves with a motion that makes Finn unable to stop his eyes from sweeping up over every inch of her body, focusing on the way the skin of her legs flashes under her dress whenever she lifts her skirt with one hand, bringing it sweeping around her waist as she taps the tambourine against her hip.

Everyone is mesmerized by the sensual dance, and looking around at the awestruck faces surrounding him, Finn is somewhat relieved to see that everyone seems just as affected as he is.

Hux views the disgusting parade from his chambers, in a tower high in Notre Dame. The festivals the gypsies put on every few times a year are as careless and crude as ever. The little devils dance around the lines of authority just as they dance about the streets, dressed in their provocative clothing and performing their devil worship for the eyes of every townsperson who walks by, while scavengers loot and steal from every passerby they can, any wealthy fool who stops to view the blasphemous acts.

Soon they will have enough leverage to put an end to these little celebrations without inciting a riot from the people. But for now, they will have to be endured.

And of course now… she is here.

He hadn’t expected her to display herself so proudly this soon. But her defiance was sinister the other day at the flogging when she had so boldly stepped in to intervene, to no one's protest somehow. And now here she is again, miles down below him where he can still see her clearly, every move of her hips, every flick of her hand, every time her fingers curl invitingly towards the men watching her.

A smile dances about her face, a smile filled with the promise of delicious things, devilish things, things that godly men shouldn’t think of.

A warmth spreads through him as he watches her through the window, seeing her body writhe and frolic, inviting the men to stare upon her chest and her waist. She hypnotizes him with her movements, with the looks she gives, with the thoughts she implies, the fantasies she acts out in her dancing, as if she knows very well how she is teasing him.

Hux’s hands go to his chest as he feels his own body respond with interest at her lewd movements. He is suddenly picturing her dancing only for him. Her body being his alone to possess. His hands roaming the skin under her dress that she flashes so overtly.

Shall I be damned for this? he wonders, unable to pull his eyes away from the window even if he wanted to. He is a pious man. He has never felt the unholy desire for the flesh. That is his strength, how he is able to serve God with a cleansed soul and pure mind.

Then what is this sudden strength he feels that arouses something deep inside him, a place he never knew existed within his mind and body? Why has the scavenger girl not left his mind since he saw her that day, sparkling in the sunlight, her hand brushing along his chest as she tantalized the crowd…

It could be a test for him. Yes… a test from God. A test to prove his devotion.

A witch putting him under a heinous spell. A demon sent from the depths of hell to taunt him with this agonizing desire. That is what she is.

He straightens his head, commanding his racing heart to take control of itself as he desperately tries dousing the heat in his body, and the heaviness in his chest.

He will not fail. Never has he given into temptation. He has lived his life in perfect order, never out of place with God or the church or the prophet. And this alluring little siren is not about to change that.

Chapter Text

Kylo is at least relieved that his injuries are an excuse not to have to go out into town today in order to patrol the festival. He’s not entirely ready to face the world again after his humiliation last week. In fact, he’s hardly come out of his chambers since.

No one comes to attend to him, so he takes care of his wounds himself, though he is notably less skilled than Rey had been.

Rey…

How he longs for her kind touch. Even if her compassion for him has surely worn off by now, he can’t help but pray, every morning when he wakes and goes to the window across from his bed, that he will see her ascending the steps to the church, on her way to see him.

He knows for sure now she is not the evil that Hux had spoken of. No one so sinful would have shown such tenderness, especially towards a monster like him.

Even as he watches her now, he knows that no wickedness lives within her.

She looks as angelic as ever in her soft blue dress, decorated with glittering jewels as she dances merrily, excitement and happiness in her eyes as she performs for the crowd gathered around her.

He is once again pulled into the story she tells with her movements. She invites him into her world, even though he is so far away from her, holding onto every move she makes with her body even though she has no idea he is watching her.

He is amazed by her talent and beauty, how easily she is able to pull all attention toward her. He is sure it is because of the happiness she ignites in one’s heart, how joyful she looks as she does what she loves, making everyone smile with her infectious jubilation.

How could someone be so beautiful? How could someone make his heart feel so light, make him feel this happiness he has never felt before?

Kylo leans further out the open window of his chambers, feeling a breeze brush over his face. He hasn’t put his mask back on since that day. There hadn’t really been a need to since he hadn’t interacted with anyone since then. But even now, he feels a repulsion go through him when he thinks of putting it on again. He’d forgotten the feeling of the air on his face, how much more bright everything looked without the constant shade of it over his eyes.

Most of all, he hates imagining looking at her through it again. He wants to look at her like he is now, through his own, uncovered eyes.

Palpatine had said the mask would help him. Heal his soul, bury his old identity so that the sinful part of him no longer existed. But now that he is free of it, despite how embarrassed and exposed he had felt initially, it feels as if a tremendous burden has been lifted away from him.

And he doesn’t wish to feel it ever again.

* * *

The festival is everything Rey had hoped it would be. The gypsies in the Resistance had been telling her what fun it would be, and her expectations were well exceeded.

Of course, it was nothing as grand as the celebrations in Jakku, but she had just as much fun. She had danced for hours, and everyone had loved her. They had cheered and tossed her gold coins, and begged for her to continue.

Nothing gives her as much joy as dancing, but having people enjoy just as much as she does is something that never fails to amaze her. There isn’t much she knows how to do, but if she can bring anyone the slightest bit of happiness, it gives her an unimaginable amount of comfort.

It’s late in the day now, about time for the sun to start going down. Rey had collected all of her things, leaving her costume on for now, thinking she could take it off when she gets back to the Court of Miracles. She’d have to find where Finn has gone first since she doesn’t quite know the way back yet.

But after she steps out of the tent and begins walking through the crowd of people all gathering up their belongings and decorations from today, she nearly runs into the tall, domineering man who seems to step out of nowhere.

She leans back, almost stumbling on her dress as she takes a few steps away from the man she had almost run into who is now sneering down at her in disapproval.

Once her eyes focus on him, she recognizes him immediately as the Captain of the Guard that had intervened the night she had been nearly kidnapped off the streets her first night here.

“Excuse me, sir,” she bows her head apologetically when the man says nothing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see-”

“Scavenger girl,” the man speaks in a loud, soulless voice as he gazes upon her with his hands clasped behind him. “You were seen by multiple members of the church dancing obscenely in the presence of others on this day. Do you deny this?”

She stares at him for a moment, at first unsure of what to say. She hadn’t thought she had been doing anything… obscene.

“I… I was dancing earlier, yes,” she answers. This response seems to make him stand even straighter and make his expression even more stern, if that were possible.

“I’m sure you realize the seriousness of this infraction,” he tells her, making her even more confused. “If you are ever seen dancing in such vulgar ways in these streets again, you will be arrested. Is that understood?”

He only waits for one second before turning and marching off, where she sees a small group of other soldiers waiting for him, along with more sprinkled throughout the square, some stopping people in the streets as the Captain had done with her.

Rey moves quickly and keeps her head down as she walks through the square towards the meeting place Finn had given her in case they got separated.

The gypsies had promised her the church officials and the police wouldn't bother with the small performances given during the festival. That if they did, they would have to spend many painful hours combing through the city streets to make sure every single person was acting in line, which was a task they were not equipped for.

But someone had seen her dance, her specifically. Someone had seen her and didn’t like it. That can be the only explanation, at least that she can think of. Unless every single other person that danced today is being threatened with arrest.

“Rey?”

She turns to see Finn approaching her, looking a bit worn out from the day himself, but his face still giving that glowing, bashful smile.

Forgetting herself for a moment, and a bit dazed from the excitement of the day and the nerves still buzzing through her, she leaps toward him and throws her arms over his shoulders.

“How do you think it went?” she smiles, feeling his body jerk with surprise against her before his arms slowly come up across her back to hold her in a warm embrace.

“I suppose I should ask you that,” he responds as she pulls back and stares eagerly into his eyes.

“I thought it was fantastic!” she answers. “I’ve never had so much fun in my entire life! Did you see how many people were watching me? I’ve never had so many eyes on me before, and here I thought all these people hated me in the last times they’ve seen me here.”

“Well, that’s the thing about this city,” Finn seems to sigh as he turns to glance briefly out at the dispersing crowd of people all running off back to their homes before the sun sets the rest of the way. “They can change their minds about something without a second’s notice.”

“And that’s what we’re depending on?” she assumes as they begin walking through the emptying square, heading towards the discreet street corner where they will begin their trek back to the Court of Miracles.

“That’s all we can hope for,” he admits, though his tone sounds a bit less than hopeful.

She thinks of telling him about the encounter she had just had with the Captain, but decides to wait. She doesn’t want to ruin today. It has been too important to her and she knows the Resistance will be ready to celebrate.

There is no sense in taking this small victory away from them.

The bell tower is usually empty. Only when the bell ringers come to set the giant bells in motion is when the large tower is occupied. That is why it is Kylo’s favorite place in the church.

There is an undeniable beauty in it. One feels incredibly small standing below the array of brass bells that line up all the way overhead. It is especially dazzling at sunset, when the golden light glints off of each of the bells, creating a maze of shadows and flares of light cascading throughout the tower.

It is a peaceful place to think, to clear one’s head, or simply to just marvel at something that seems so much bigger than oneself.

Kylo walks about the tower tonight, looking down over the balcony at the town below, where people are scattered about, heading back to their homes, cleaning up their carts and stations, buying last minute things for dinner.

He spots Rey easily through the mass of people, her radiant light glowing even louder than the light from the sunset.

She is with the man she has been close with all day. The one who watched her dance, the one she smiled at and embraced whenever they met. Now, they are walking about the town together. He seems to be showing her things, things that make her smile and laugh. The way two lovers walk on a casual evening night.

The young man is perfect for her. He is good. He’s probably never done anything monstrous. He’s never harmed a living soul. He has no demons that constantly bite at his mind, no ghosts that haunt his nightmares.

Rey is light and beautiful and innocent. Of course she would desire someone who matches that innocence. Someone who is as kind and gentle as her. Someone with a beautiful soul, just like she has.

Kylo is not naive enough to believe she would ever want anyone like him. Someone with a murderous, ugly soul.

Curiously enough however, one thing he can tell even from watching this far away, is that the man she smiles at and laughs with is hiding a torn mind.

Kylo has seen it before. Men whose minds wander, towards other women or other passions. Men who aren’t truly devoted to whatever they promise their love to.

This man is not devoted to her. Perhaps he cares for another. Kylo can’t exactly tell that much. But one look at the way he watches her would show anyone the man’s true, unsure feelings.

But even still, why should Rey care? She has a forgiving heart. She’s proved that much already. Would she not forgive a man like that time and time again for not loving her with all his heart?

As Kylo leans over from his place in the tower, miles above the town below him, he suddenly feels a hatred in his heart so intense, it burns like a fire in his chest.

For the first time ever, he feels deep resentment for everything he has done. Hate for what he has done. He regrets every terrible thing that has damaged his soul, every person he has hurt in an effort to prove himself to the people who hold him hostage, every piece he has cut away from himself just to salvage whatever peace he thought it could bring him.

For now, he can never know love.

He closes his eyes, turning away from the sight below him as his heart aches and tears drip down from his eyes.

At least not a love like that.

His hands grab against the ledge of the balcony he had been at before his body sinks slowly to the ground, his head thrown back against the stone as he stares up along the pattern of glittering bells that glimmer and wink through the tears in his eyes.

How could God be so loving if He creates creatures like this? Lost creatures like him that turn into murderous beasts that only regain their humanity when they realize love is just out of reach for them. Would it not be kinder to have him remain inexistent, inanimate and unable to feel anything at all? Not love, or pain or longing. Nothing that hurts.

In this moment, Kylo finds himself wanting to hate God for leading him down this path. For leaving him lost and alone like this, for taking away any chance of worth or happiness. Why has this happened to him? Who did he used to be before these people turned him into a monster?

But of course, he knows deep down that the only person to blame for his own stupid choices, is himself. And perhaps he is only now receiving what is well deserved.

Chapter Text

The celebrations back at the Court of Miracles last all through the night, just as Finn predicted. But he is feeling significantly less enthusiastic than he had earlier in the day.

He lets Rey go off with the new friends she has made while he quietly slips away from the festivities, walking off through the empty hallways towards the empty meeting room he knows Poe is sitting in alone.

Sure enough, the frazzled looking man is sitting at one of the tables, pretending to pour over one of the millions of scrolls that can’t possibly hold as much information he seems to think that it does.

“What are you doing here?” Poe asks him as Finn walks silently into the room, not surprised at Poe’s talent for knowing whenever he enters, even if his back is turned towards him. “Shouldn’t you be out with the others? It was a successful day.”

“I guess I’m not really in a celebrating mood.”

“I guess that makes two of us.”

Finn can tell from the iciness in his voice that he knows.

He had seen. Finn hadn’t realized it at first, but Poe had seen. He had seen him watching Rey dance with the same hungry look all the other men had plastered on their reddened faces. He had seen the smile that had colored Finn’s face when Rey had leapt over and embraced him after her dance had ended and how Finn had reacted to such a gesture.

“Poe…” he begins, walking over to the table seated in the corner of the room and sitting down beside him.

“You don’t have to say anything, Finn,” Poe tells him shortly, not bothering to look up. “Trust me.”

So Finn doesn’t say anything for a little bit. But that’s only because he can’t think of what to say next, what defense he can use. How he can somehow reassure Poe that he does still feel for him.

“Poe, I… I love you-”

“I see the way you look at her,” Poe interrupts, finally looking away from his work to gaze over at him. But his tone doesn’t sound hurt or even angry. “I saw it the moment you brought her here.”

He leaves like that for a moment, and Finn finds his throat closed off, unable to speak to Poe’s statement.

“How could I blame you?” he continues, looking back down at his papers. “It’s the way everyone looks at her.”

At this, Finn looks at him oddly.

The way everyone looks at her? Well of course everyone would look at her that way. There is no one else here like her. So why is he the only one not allowed to feel such things?

“Nothing’s changed,” Finn assures him, though caution and a hint of bitterness flash unintentionally in his tone. “I can’t help how I feel, Poe. But nothing has changed how I feel about you. Does that… is that not what matters?”

When Poe speaks, there is not a hint of emotion in his tone. No proof that he cares whatsoever about this conversation.

“You’re a grown man, Finn. You are free to do what you want, so please don’t let me stop you.”

Finn searches madly for the words or the emotions he wants to feel and say, but his mind comes up jumbled and confused until there is nothing left but a slew of angered defenses that seem to sedate his mind into reassurance.

He hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s never broken any rules. He’s only a human being after all, are all of his desires to be instantly cut off because he has chosen a partner to love?

He rises up from the table, waiting to see if Poe will say anymore. He doesn’t. So Finn leaves.

After a walk that is blinded by rage and confusion, he ends up back at the bunks, laying against the uncomfortable makeshift bed he hasn’t shared with Poe for months for a few moments before standing up again and pacing about their small quarters, which only allows him to take about three steps each direction.

He is losing Poe. That much is clear, if it hadn’t been before.

Why does he feel like he is being pulled in two directions? One moment he thinks all hope with Poe is lost and he should just take a chance and profess to Rey the growing emotions he feels towards her, and the next he is feeling as if he is losing the most precious thing in his life and needs to do everything in his power to save it.

He thought perhaps Rey would be a passing interest, some intense fascination he would move on from, but it is as if his mind has been put under an enticing spell. She hasn’t left his mind since the moment he saw her. He’s dreamed of her, of tasting her lips, of feeling her body against his, of sharing an intimacy with her that he has only ever shared with one other person in his life.

How can he choose what his heart wants more? Rey is everything light and wondrous and safe, an angelic beauty radiating from her that naturally draws anyone towards her. Like a beautiful, sun filled day that cures any sadness one could ever feel, and Poe is like the dangerous night, unpredictable and slightly scary, but with something that assures everyone he is worth following. And his unmatched generous heart is proof that he is.

Finn remembers when he first met Poe. The excitement and wonder and dreams that soon followed are all not unlike what he is feeling now with Rey.

But that was long ago. Perhaps Poe was a different person back then, and perhaps so was he. The Resistance seems to be Poe’s first love now.

So why can’t Finn have another love as well?

* * *

Rey stays up through most of the night with the other members of the Resistance. Having had to restrain themselves all throughout the day, the gypsies don’t hold back with the theatrics once everyone is within the private freedom of the Court of Miracles.

She is quite tired after a while, not only from the day, but from the after-hours festivities as well, so she steps away when no one is looking just to take a breath.

As she paces along the hallways, staring around in amazement at the underground facility, she briefly considers just going back to her bunk and getting some much needed and much deserved rest. But her curiosity gets the better of her and she finds it much more interesting to walk about the empty hallways, peeking into the vacant rooms just to see what is in them.

Really, all the rooms are fairly similar, but Rey likes looking through them nonetheless. Maybe it’s just the feeling of being alone as she walks around through the empty meeting and supply areas, her eyes gazing over all the papers and materials that are used for things yet to be explained to her.

“Rey?”

The voice is even and loud as it speaks to her from the doorway she had crossed through moments earlier, and she jumps as she turns back around, wondering how in the world she hadn’t noticed there was someone close by.

“I’m sorry,” the woman who had spoken smiles from where she stands near the threshold, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Rey quickly apologizes, walking up towards her and feeling her face go red. “I probably shouldn’t be in here.”

“I assure you, it’s quite alright,” the woman nods.

She is an older woman, but strong looking. Her grey hair is twisted up atop her head in a very neat braided style. She’s dressed in attire Rey has never seen a woman dress in before. It looks to be some sort of uniform, something a man would wear.

The look in her eyes is warm, like eyes that a mother would have. It instantly strikes something within her that makes her slow her pace until she pauses before the woman, previously thinking she would just brush past her and quickly rush off to her bunk.

“I’m afraid we haven’t had a chance to be properly introduced,” the woman nods towards her after a short moment. “But things have been so busy lately. I’ve already heard so much about you, but tonight is the first I’ve ever seen of you.”

Rey nods slowly, not quite sure what she is supposed to say to this woman.

“Rey,” she speaks again, her tone as soft and welcoming as her presence. She extends an arm towards her, and Rey carefully takes her hand, still slightly confused. “I’m Leia.”

Rey’s mouth opens in shock and embarrassment as she immediately drops all of her cautionary defenses and gives the woman a relieved smile as she shakes her hand.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she breathes as Leia gives her an understanding look. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

The woman’s eyes seem to stare straight past her, as if they were seeing more than just her face. It is something else that she is gazing upon with intrigue, and something about it brings Rey a sense of peace, or perhaps reassurance.

Before she can ask her if there is something the matter, the older woman raises a hand up, gently resting it against the side of Rey’s small face.

The gesture sends warmth through her, something familiar, something that makes her throat close up. She can’t think to back away or to react with fear at the sudden touch. It feels so natural.

Seeming to have come out of whatever brief daze she had been in, Leia gives her another warm grin, as if she were pleased with whatever she had seen.

“You have no idea how happy I am to have you here, Rey.”

“I’m… very happy to be here,” Rey nods back, feeling encouraged by the woman’s words. “I know I’m not from around here, but I want to do whatever I can to help.”

“You will,” the woman answers back without a moment’s hesitation. “You have the spirit we all need right now.”

Rey doesn’t know if she should reply to such a knowing statement, but she certainly knows enough about the natural ability to read someone, even someone you have just met.

“You’re so sure,” she comments. “I am no warrior, and I don’t believe I possess the knowledge of how to take down an entire empire.”

“Sometimes it isn’t as simple as that,” Leia tells her, lowering her hand from her face and stepping back slightly, though she now holds Rey’s hand in both of hers. “That is the ultimate goal, yes, but a rebellion is made up of much smaller things. Things that seem small to others, but are invaluable to people like us.”

“That is how you build a rebellion,” Rey answers in understanding. “Because you can get by so unnoticed.”

“Indeed,” Leia nods, her eyebrows raising. “It’s our spirit and our refusal to stay stagnant that will bring the church back to its proper place.”

“And you believe I can help so much?” Rey questions. “I’m no more important than anyone else.”

“Perhaps not,” Leia shrugs. “But you can never underestimate someone like you.”

“Like me?”

“Someone who is able to turn tides without any intention,” Leia answers. “I am a firm believer Rey, that anyone can turn their allegiance. And it doesn’t take much more than the confidence of a spirited young woman to do so.”

Now Rey is more confused than she had been before, but before she can ask the Resistance leader what she means by the cryptic statement, the woman has turned back towards the hallway.

“I don’t mean to take up any more of your time,” she calls back to the girl. “You had better get some rest. I’ve heard you had quite an exciting day.”

Chapter Text

There is something bright in the air as Rey walks through the streets of Exegol this morning. Perhaps it is the way the sun is glowing just so through the clouds, or the kind smiles the merchants send her way, or how everyone seems to be moving about at their leisure, a day free from work or worry. It is a lovely thing to come upon after a night full of rest and an urge she has to meet the day with enthusiasm.

It seems that people recognize her quite well just from the festival, even though it has been a few days since. Granted, she supposes she is not hard to miss, being the only one walking along dressed the way she is, in her usual scrappy desert-fitted attire along with a string of beads around her neck given to her by the gypsies from the Resistance and her hair pulled up in her usual fashion that seems to be quite abnormal around here.

But her presence is not met with hatred or fear or disgust as she had expected. Rather, everyone seems quite excited to pass by the “Jakku girl” or the “girl who dances” as she has been so thoughtfully titled. If she is not greeted verbally, she is almost always given a nod of a head or a friendly grin to let her know she is known and she is welcomed.

Such a contrast to how she sees the gypsies and scavengers hidden in the alleyways, starving and begging for compassion. She wonders if it is the people of Exegol who have cast them out like this, or if perhaps it is simply the influence of the church.

It hadn’t struck her how far Notre Dame’s reach really is across the country. It has made her wonder, sometimes all through the hours of the night, what the world she has seen would look like if the Resistance goes through with their mission of liberating Exegol from the church’s corruption. Would Jakku be different as well? How much has the church affected her home?

“Look!” a voice calls out near her, making her turn away from the cart of bread she had been eyeing hungrily.

It is a young girl, clutching her mother’s hand, pointing straight towards her, her eyes wide with amazement as if she had just seen a shooting star.

“It’s the dancing girl!” another child calls out, running up towards where a small circle has begun to form around Rey.

She smiles at all the faces flooding around her, people who are somehow pleased at seeing her here in town after the festival.

“Dance for us!” someone cries out to her, followed by an eager wave of agreement.

“Please, please dance for us!”

Soon, there is a heavy wave of cheers, urging her to dance, as she turns to see the street corner that had been her destination, where there is already a group of frail looking men playing merrily on soft instruments she had not heard over the hum of the people.

Thinking to use her skills to her advantage, she had planned to dance in this discreet little corner in order to earn some extra coins that the Resistance can use for whatever they need. One of the gypsy men had instructed her where to meet this small group of musicians that also aid the Resistance with whatever money they are able to make.

Her heart beating excitedly in her chest, Rey unhooks the bag she had been carrying over her shoulder and sets it down against the ground, leaning it up against one of the small structures before walking over to where the crowd of people have formed, giving her a small makeshift stage in the little corner.

Grabbing her tambourine out of her bag, she steps over to where the men have turned their attention toward her and have begun playing a simple and merry tune on their flutes.

She dances without even taking a moment to think. Never has anyone in Jakku ever stopped on the streets and been enlivened to see her dance again. Her dancing always brought joy to others in the excitement of a celebration, never to people going about their daily routes, shopping for food or for supplies or whatever they needed to do in town.

Now, there is a small audience, just for her, formed in less than a moment, filled with bright smiling faces of children, men, and women, all frozen, still holding their baskets and crates, but waiting happily to see the show.

It is not hard to get into the beat of the flute, matching it against her tambourine as she skips about to the cheerful tune.

She turns and claps her hand against her instrument, touching her fingers against the delicate cloth of her white sash that flows down from her waist, flipping it to and fro as she frolics along the small circle of ground beneath her.

People clap, cheer, whistle, and toss down gold and bronze coins at her feet. She begins to lose herself, as always, listening as the sound of the music envelops her, takes her off to the place she goes when she dances so freely like this, the place she vaguely recalls her mother speaking to her about. A place that makes her heart feel warm, her face alight with joy, the sun shining perfectly on her body, a breeze flowing through her ever so delicately…

“Again!” people call to her. “More!”

She is lost. Her mind is swept away until she can no longer clearly see the city around her, she can’t hear the march of armored boots against the stone streets coming toward her until it is too late.

“Scavenger girl!” a voice cuts through the cheers of the crowd. The people disperse, recognizing the jarring voice.

Rey quickly comes crashing down violently from the blissful high that had taken her, her heart freezing painfully in her chest as she looks upon the Captain sitting atop a white horse, a small group of his men behind him, all of them looking at her with venom in their eyes.

“Were you not warned once before about your vulgar dancing being displayed before the public?” his voice booms out, seeming to echo darkly against the cobblestone streets somehow.

She stands still, only her eyes moving, flickering about this way and that, as if searching for something. She realizes that she has become so comfortable in coming and going as she pleases through these small little visits to town, that she never takes anyone with her anymore.

The musicians have run off. The crowd that had been at her side looks to be nowhere in sight, as if they had never been there at all. No one from the Resistance is here, at least anywhere near her. She’s all alone.

The Captain nods at his men that have already begun to advance.

“Arrest her!” the Captain commands, but Rey has turned away before the words are able to reach across the street corner into her ears. “She is to be brought before the archdeacon!”

She hasn’t time to ponder the order that she doesn’t understand. She has already snatched up her bag, tossing it over her shoulder and leaping into the mess of people that are busying their way through the square.

She is quicker than the guards. It is almost too easy. They obviously aren’t used to having to race with a scavenger through a busy market. She’s been running away from thugs and shop owners since she was a child, so evading these slow moving guards is rather an undaunting challenge.

Still, she is in an unfamiliar place, with nowhere to run. She can’t risk going back to the Court of Miracles since she has now drawn so much attention. She swore an oath to give her life before she revealed the Resistance hideout. But she is in no mood to die today.

Rey yanks the heavy cloak she had been carrying with her out of her bag, ducking below the moving crowds of people as she throws it over herself, pulling the hood firmly over her head before reemerging again, her head turning every which way as she desperately searches for an escape route, a hiding place, anything to at least allow her to pause for a moment to reassess what her options are.

But there are no such luxuries in a place like this. So she just has to run.

There is only one place she can see. One path, leading straight up to the grand steps. To the doors of the church.

She risks a glance behind her, seeing that she has confused the guards, even the Captain, though it doesn’t take long for his gaze to wander towards her, so she quickly looks away and rushes up the rest of the stairs, stepping under the great shadows that the large cathedral showers down upon the mediocre looking ground beneath it.

The heavy door creaks open as she presses her palms against it. The same door she had opened for the poor man who had been humiliated and hurt in the square.

She thinks of him briefly as she takes a deep breath, stepping in through the slightly opened door, feeling a chill go through her, as if she has entered a cooled cellar. She tries to comfort herself, thinking of that man’s comfort as he had entered this daunting place. He had looked relieved when entering through these doors. So should she be this terrified?

Silence follows as she pulls the shined wooden door closed behind her. She is slightly shocked by the darkness, but oddly enough, the first thing that she is startlingly aware of is how the floor feels.

The material of her boots are sturdy, but old and thin, making it quite easy to detect the slightest difference in the ground beneath her feet.

It’s smoother. Softer in a way, but cold. Much colder than the stone outside. It’s a texture she’s never felt before. Looking down, her eyes squint against the darkness to see the floor, a brilliant shade of white marble that glows with patterns of black, illuminated by some sort of flickering light that reflects off the polished surface.

Rey turns around slowly as she backs away from the door, her eyes following along the strange looking floor, trailing upwards until she is staring at the wall beside her.

Tall candles are the source of the flickering lights. As her eyes slowly adjust, she sees the candles sitting atop an assortment of tall, thin stands that shine a proud brass color and hold the candles with a firm looking grip.

The quiet begins to hum more loudly in her ears as she turns to face the rest of the room, her lips parted in awe as her eyes fall upon the rest of the chamber she has entered.

It may be the largest room Rey has ever seen. To call it a room is perhaps insufficient in the first place. The ceiling reaches up miles above her head, the structure looking as if it were crafted by something beautiful. Something non-human.

Glass windows line the high walls, painted in bright, gorgeous colors that show pictures of people and things Rey does not know, but is stricken by nonetheless.

She sees people, dozens of them spread about the church. They are kneeling before different monuments that mean nothing to her, but that she can tell mean something great to the people here.

It feels suddenly as if the enormous church were pressing down on her, forcing her back towards the door, intent on crushing down upon her. Seeing these other people here worshiping the silent elegance of this beauteous place, she feels so insignificant. So unworthy of being in the same place, seeing the same things.

She instantly regrets coming in here, thinking how big of a mistake it was to think that she would ever be-

“Don’t be afraid.”

Rey startles at the voice, whipping around to see that a figure has approached behind her to her complete unawareness.

It is an older man with a grey beard and longish hair. He is dressed in robes that make it clear to her that he is a man of some importance.

His eyes are piercing as they look upon her, and he seems to recognize something, though does not look accusatory as he gazes into her own fearful eyes.

“Child,” he speaks in a voice that sounds as if it were concerned for her. Rey opens her mouth to apologize and quickly rush out, but the man’s aura convinces her to remain. “You look quite troubled.”

She knows what she looks like. Even the mangy old covering she has shrouded herself in can’t hide her social standing.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she speaks, keeping her voice lowered to a whisper, but still hearing it echo slightly around her. “I’m sorry, I can’t… I’m not-”

“Nonsense, child,” the man says gently, though he makes no move towards her to try and block her way to the door. “Everyone is welcomed here.”

He moves over towards a line of candles near them on the wall that seem to be going out.

Rey stays where she is, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

Everyone? If that is the case, then she has certainly heard differently.

“Not people like me,” she counters, carefully following behind the bearded man as he re-lights the candles. “I mean, I… I’m not from around here. I’m not… the guards, they’re after me now…”

Instead of freezing his movements, turning around in horror and immediately ordering her out, the man goes about his business as if she hadn’t said anything alarming.

“Many people seek sanctuary here,” he tells her as she follows behind him at a safe distance. “Many stay, if it is not safe for them to leave. You are welcomed here as long as you’d like.”

She shakes her head.

“You don’t understand,” she insists. “I’m… I’m from Jakku, I stowed away here on a carriage sent by the church. I danced in the streets, I’m… I’m a criminal.”

She doesn’t know why she suddenly feels the need to tell all of this to this strange man who’s just happened upon her. Perhaps she wants reassurance that the words she is speaking are indeed true, that she needs to be running from this place rather than feeling something compelling pulling her closer towards it. This place is evil. That is what she had been told.

Still, the man does not seem to take offense at her words.

“You will be safe here,” he assures her, finishing lighting the rest of the candles, making the room seem to glow more brightly.

Rey falls silent again as she watches him, part in fascination and part in outrage that he seems to care so little about who she is, even when she is so clearly unlike anyone else in this entire place.

Her attention is drawn back to the many people kneeling before their respective temples, their eyes closed and muttering silently to themselves, as if they were speaking to the monuments they bow before, pleading.

She feels herself drawn towards it again, something calling her. There is something so fascinating, so peaceful about the image before her, whatever these people are doing, whoever they are… she feels something for it, in her heart. Almost as if she understands everything about it, only that could never possibly be true.

“Prayer,” the man speaks to her again, having walked up beside her again, only this time, Rey is not startled. “Most are taught at a very young age.”

He pauses, and Rey can feel he is looking at her, asking an unspoken question.

“I’ve heard of it,” she admits, unable to take her eyes from the grand cathedral. “I never learned.”

“It can bring one great consolation,” the man tells her, keeping his tone unforceful. “Even if one does not follow the faith.”

Now she turns to look at him, confusion riddled on her face.

“We do not command that those who seek sanctuary be educated in all aspects of the faith,” he informs her. “I however like to encourage all those looking for comfort, to look for it in prayer.”

Again, Rey is nearly too stunned to speak.

“This place,” she whispers, still unwilling to disturb such tranquility, “... I’ve heard so many things. This can’t be…”

“Evil takes root in many places,” the man nods, something sad and perhaps bitter going through his eyes for just a moment before the even look returns. “But I believe that some good has managed to prevail here. And if one has the need to indulge in it, if only for a moment or two, they are still free to.”

Rey shakes her head, now in disbelief.

“Then why don’t the others come here?” she wonders aloud. “If they are so welcomed?”

He gives her a narrowed gaze, a more serious expression on his face now.

“Fear is another root that runs deep, I suppose,” he relents. “And not so easily conquered.”

Rey knows the deep truth in that.

She walks forward, only after glancing back towards the man who gives her an approving nod. She moves slowly and discreetly, along the side of the room where none of the people deep in prayer will be bothered by her. But still where she can study everything she passes by, every artifact, every statue, every window.

The man, a priest he must be, goes with her, but continues to give her enough space to go along on her own without feeling as if he is hovering so closely so that she feels she can go as she pleases.

She stops, watching a woman quickly standing up and rushing away from the statue she had been kneeling before.

Rey steps around to face the front of the small, yet imposing statue, feeling so minuscule as she steps further out onto the marble floor. But she feels entirely different when she looks upon the face of the statue.

It is the statue of a woman. A woman with a kind, yet firm face, dressed in flowing white robes, with a child on her hip.

Something about it captivates her. The gentleness of it, and yet… the power.

“The Virgin Mary,” the priest introduces as Rey stands speechless before the image. “Many pray to her for strength or wisdom.”

“Who is she?” Rey asks, her voice breathless as she suddenly feels not so small, not so unwanted or unfit.

The priest opens his mouth as if he were about to explain, but his expression changes after a moment.

“She is whoever she appears to you,” he answers her. “She is the very thoughts you are feeling.”

Rey doesn’t know how long she stands staring. Lost in her own mind, almost like the feeling she gets when she dances, only more calm and restful. She thinks of the people all around, kneeling down and speaking, of the woman who had just rushed off.

“Can I…” she doesn’t know how to finish the question.

“If you speak to her, she will listen,” the priest assures with another nod. “She may even be able to offer some assistance.”

Rey nods slowly, ever so confused at the emotions that have suddenly taken over her. She does not know why she feels the need to suddenly throw herself into something she knows nothing about, something she has been told over and over again she is not welcomed to.

Whatever the reasons, she sinks down slowly to her knees as the priest walks off, placing her hands awkwardly on her knees as she gazes helplessly up at the wondrous statue.

“I… I’m not sure of the proper way to do this,” Rey begins, keeping her voice low so others will not hear her words. “How to speak to you… Mary. I’ve never… I suppose you’ll know I am not of your faith. In fact I know very little about it, aside from what I have heard from others, which now I am starting to doubt more and more.”

She stops for a moment, taking a glance back at the others, noticing the way they hold their hands. She considers attempting to emulate the same poses, but quickly shakes the idea off, deciding to keep her hands where they are for now.

“I do not know if you listen for people like me,” she continues, looking up at the woman in white above her. “If you don’t, I am sorry I’ve intruded upon you. I’m not sure why I’ve decided to speak to you. Only… all I can say is that I find myself so comforted here, and I don’t know how. It’s as if I can… feel something. You, maybe?”

A small part of her hopes the statue will answer. But it does not. And Rey knows it may be because of the type of person who is kneeling before it, or because she is not of this faith and does not know how to prayer correctly. She still isn’t quite sure what a prayer requires, but she continues on nonetheless, hoping that this beautiful woman to whom she is prayering to will take some pity on her and forgive her for her unfamiliarity.

“Coming to this place has seemed like the most important and exciting thing I’ve ever done,” she speaks, beginning to feel more comfortable as she goes on, like she is speaking with someone, or something that has the power to understand exactly what she is feeling. “I have already seen so many wondrous things and met so many wondrous people, and yet somehow… somehow I feel my heart has sunk even lower.”

She pauses for another moment, wondering briefly if it is wise to speak of such things in this place that is supposedly housing her enemies.

But they are not here. They can not hear the words she speaks now. Somehow, she is sure of that.

“There is so much darkness here,” she avows. “So much sadness. I used to think this place was evil for not reaching out to all those who yearn for your help, but now I fear it is because you do not see them at all. So I ask you now… I beg you. If you can show yourself to these people in any way that you can, these people who need you… then I feel this place may begin to heal again, before the darkness can spread any further. Seeing all of this beauty before me… I know evil was not meant to reside here. I know it is in the hearts of men where this evil comes from, but I ask you to help us fight against it. Open your doors to everyone who needs you. I do not feel our two worlds were never meant to be separated.”

Rey stops again, glancing around nervously, but still she sees that no one here seems to be overhearing her private words.

She feels slightly sheepish as she turns back to the monument, wondering whether or not she should speak the remaining thoughts lingering tormentingly in her mind. But, she supposes, since she is speaking about everything else, it will do her no good unless she has relieved her troubled mind of absolutely everything.

“I am afraid for myself as well,” she admits to the silent statue. “This land is new and exciting to me, but it is also frightening and strange. I have always been so sure of myself before, but here… I am beginning to see how alone I truly am. Nobody knows me here. There are people who look at me with such hate because of what they wish to guess about me. Powerful people, who I fear will… I fear that something horrible is coming for me, and I will not see it before it is too late.”

Without thinking, Rey’s hands clasp together, and she raises high onto her knees as she looks into the unmoving white eyes of the woman with the child on her hip.

“I know I may not deserve it, but I ask for your protection,” she begs, feeling embarrassed, but desperate all the same. “I do not know what your faith requires of its followers, but if you are able to spare any thought for me, I ask that you help guide me through this cruel world I have found myself in. Something tells me you must see it too.”

The statue does not respond. It never responds. Nothing miraculous happens. Not once in the entire time Rey speaks to the unresponsive woman.

But it does not take her long to realize that it does not matter what does or what does not happen immediately. In truth, there is only a great relief, an amazing sense of easement she receives in expressing her distress, her fears, and her hopes like this. It feels as if she can finally say whatever has been weighing heavy in her heart or on her mind without any shame or consequence.

Although, as she speaks with this holy figure she has never spoken to before, the question still lingers unspoken before her of whether figures as divine as these would ever answer the pleas of a poor scavenger girl who has nothing to offer them in return.

Chapter Text

Hux stands on the upper levels overlooking the cathedral below. His gloved hand is delicately placed on the railing, unmoving. He stands still and straight, though he knows no one would be looking his way. His figure is hidden in the shadows that cave in around the grand chamber below him, where millions of candles dance about, lighting the various altars that decorate the church. The altars that, like him, shine pristinely and importantly from their places, serving their holy purpose as they have always been intended.

And now a scavenger walks among it.

He had only glanced upon her by accident. Exiting his office, feeling the need to step out into the quiet haven of the hallway to ease his scrambled mind, only to find that she had found her way in here when glancing down at the floor miles beneath him. Those shabby, disgraceful clothes and preposterous hairstyle give her away in an instant.

He was almost sure it was a hallucination at first, his own mind playing a harsh little trick on him. But the image of her is as clear as the polished marble statues she stands before.

Outrage fills him as he watches her, seeing her move herself all about the large room, inching her filth over the holiness of the church with every step she takes, every turn of her head. He can not see her face unless she turns to look at the monuments that stand on his side of the room.

Her eyes are wide, filled with the look that sends that dark magic filtering through him, shattering down his barriers and infiltrating his mind and body just as her evil has infiltrated this church.

But he calms himself eventually. It is always best to look at the positive side of things, anyway.

Perhaps half of his work is done already. He had commanded Captain Pryde to hunt this girl down at every opportunity and to bring her before him the moment she indecently flaunted herself in front of the eyes of others, as Hux knew she would not be able to resist doing eventually. She would not come in here just to take a quick tour, so she obviously has been forced in. Hiding from the guards.

He had wanted her here, and here she has come. She looks at her surroundings as if she is walking through a forest that is new and unfamiliar to her, where she does not know where to turn next, but she is content to look at every crossing with deep curiosity and confusion.

Hux wonders if perhaps this is not a blessing, but rather a challenge from God, a challenge to burn out the evil that has entered Exegol and has now bled its way into Notre Dame.

Even now, he can feel her monstrous spell pulling at him, with the way she moves her body, how the sashes from her worn clothes drift about her, how her small lips part with interest as she turns and looks around.

He hates himself. He knows the weakness of his own heart, how it seems intent on bending to the will of this demon who seems intent on destroying him.

But it feels good. He never expected it to feel so good. It feels good knowing there is nothing he can do. It’s so easy to just allow these feelings to sweep him away, to allow the thoughts of her to linger behind his closed eyes in moments late in the night with nothing but his fantasizing thoughts to carry him through the night.

His gloved hand grabs tighter against the lip of the balcony, his uniform and robes feeling heavy and hot around him.

There is no coming back from this. The things he has thought, the heat in his blood that burns fiery still, refusing to be put out. He knows what he must do, what this challenge presented to him is asking.

He will turn her heart. He will make her see the impurity of her evil ways. She is already here. Perhaps God, not the Devil, is the one who has led her here. Pushing her to relieve herself of the evil in her heart.

Hux knows he can do it. He can cease her sinful, wandering spirit, stop her from confusing the hearts of men with her dance and dress and teasing voice.

Then… then she can be his. No other man would dare to look at her. No one would dare touch her. And she will see no one, but him.

He promises this to her silently as he watches her from above. It makes his heart beat faster, just thinking of it as he looks upon her. Thinking of holding her body flush against his, feeling her bend to his will, rather than having her wretched command reign over him.

Still, he wonders… will he still have to answer for this? For giving into his passion?

No… he is helpless. How could he remain unyielding against a power like this, something he has never felt so strongly before?

Palpatine would have the answer… an answer and a penance, no doubt. No, he will not go to the prophet. This is between him and God. Palpatine need not know the weakness this woman has drawn out in him.

This is his own cross to bear. And he will not let it dismantle him.

Kylo had been drawn downstairs from the bell tower as if something were commanding his movements. Almost like he had been sleepwalking, moving towards something he knows he needs to get to. He makes it halfway down, stopping at the second level, the hallway that leads to all of the private offices, when he sees her.

His footsteps skid to a stop when she comes into view. It is so easy to discern her from everyone else. Everyone else seems to move along solemnly, a grey discoloration about them, while she seems to glide about the church, her eyes sparkling with eagerness, something bright glowing around her, as if she were an angel.

An angel… Kylo is stricken by how right she looks surrounded by these things he passes by and sees everyday. But it also feels strange, as if he were having a dream of something mundane and she happened to wander in.

Those with spite and wickedness in their hearts are unable to enter the church. That’s what Hux had told him. Scavengers are too deceitful and greedy to be allowed in such a place.

How did she get in here? Why has she come here?

He finds he doesn’t much care about either of those things when he thinks too deeply. He is too busy studying her face as she moves about the floor below, her eyes mesmerized by what she’s seeing.

He knows it’s wrong. To feel the way he feels. He’s been instructed before about the ways of deceptive women, women who enchant men with their looks and influence, causing them to do ungodly things in the name of love.

But this is the woman who helped him. She gave him water, she tended to his wounds, she sat with him while he was scorched by the unforgiving sun all in punishment for what he had done to her.

Kylo does see darkness when he looks at her. But nothing evil. Only darkness that he himself will have to face. Whether he will be punished for the way he feels about her or perhaps for what he’s done to her. And what he has done to everyone else he was told was evil.

But he still doesn’t care. No one in his life has been so kind, so unfleetingly happy. No one has ignited such desire in him. No one has made him wish he could be looked at with desire as well.

And now, as he stands watching her from the shadows, after spending most of his life wishing to be concealed in darkness, he wishes she would raise her eyes up to him and smile.

His heart beats with excitement as he follows along on the balcony above as she moves deeper into the church, feeling that if he lets her out of his sight, she will be gone forever.

He creeps down the stairs, his boots echoing softly through the stairway. His shadow flickers against the wall from the candles lighting the hallway as he places his gloved hand against the stone wall, slowly peeking his head out into the grand chamber, looking towards where she is approaching.

She’s looking at the glorious rose window that is letting the grey light in from the outside filtered with soft hues of lavender and blue. She seems so impressed by it, but he wishes he could tell her how much more beautiful it looks when the sun is glittering through it.

As if she had heard his thoughts as clearly as if he had spoken to her aloud, she stops suddenly, her eyes flickering from side to side, until they finally land on him, seconds before he can duck back into the stairwell and run back from where he came from.

“Hey!” she calls, her voice soft as she steps quickly after him. Her voice only makes him run faster up the stairs.

His blood is cold as he nearly trips over his own feet running back up the stairs, desperate to get to the safety of the bell tower.

“Wait!”

His heart leaps when he hears her voice resound through the stairwell. Following him. Why would she want to follow him?

She’s fast. At least when she wants to be. It takes only two seconds for her to race up the rest of the stairs and catch up to where he has bounded up to the next floor. Her hand is wrapped around his arm before he can continue down the rest of the hallway and up towards the next series of stairwells that would take him back up to the tower.

He’s frozen as he feels her hand locked firmly around him, pulling him to a stop.

He wants to pull away from her and keep running. He wants to turn and hide his face. Already he can feel the blood rushing to his cheeks as he realizes there is nothing between her eyes and his unmasked face.

“There’s no need to be frightened of me,” she assures him, her eyes lightening again as she looks him over with something like confusion or curiosity. Kylo realizes how scared he must look to her. “I don’t mean to harm you.”

He assumes it won’t help him to inform her that there’s a bigger chance of him hurting her than her doing anything to him.

He tries desperately to figure out if she recognizes him or not from that day. Her face shows no signs of the sorrow or pity that had been there before, but he supposes the thin scar running down the side of his face where the rock had ripped him open will be a well enough reminder for her, if anything.

“Do you remember me?” she asks, her hand slowly falling from his arm.

He nearly laughs. Does he remember her? If only she knew.

He begins to back up again, and she moves forward, looking as if she is going to grab ahold of him again.

“Wait!” she calls again as he dodges just out of her reach and heads up towards the next stairwell.

I can’t do this… I have to get away from her… I have to get away…

“Please stop!” she persists, following right on his heels. But this time, he slows down on his own before she can catch him.

He stops just before he can place his foot on the step, his hands resting on the frame of the archway as she runs up behind him.

“You’re the man from before… back in Jakku,” she tells him as he stares longingly up the stairs, his fingers digging into the stone of the archway. “You were at the Feast of Fools. You’re the one I pulled on stage.”

Something jerks in Kylo’s chest at her words. Something that makes him relax his shoulders ever so slightly.

He turns slowly towards her, looking into her eyes. Her devastating eyes that make his heart race and a warm feeling ache through his ribcage.

“Yes,” he answers, his voice sounding smaller than he thinks he’s ever heard it.

She nods, her eyes moving up and down his face, and he realizes she must be noticing his scar, making him want to raise his hand to cover his cheek.

“I never… I never got the chance to… well, I should have stayed with you,” she sighs, her eyes not leaving his face for even a second as she gives him an apologetic stare. “That day in the square when you were… you were hurt. I should have stayed with you and made sure you were alright. I’m sorry.”

Again, Kylo wants to laugh. She’s sorry? After what he did to her, she’s sorry? He feels he will forever marvel at her unending kindness.

“No,” he shakes his head, keeping his distance still, but forcing himself to look her in the eye just as she continues to look at him. “It was my fault. I was being punished. I deserved it.”

He can tell by the look that goes over her face that she knows what it is he is referring to. And indeed, a tremor of fear flickers through her eyes for just a moment before she tosses her head to the side.

“No one deserves to be treated so cruelly,” she speaks, with unquestionable assurance in her voice.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew me,” he argues.

To that, she doesn’t answer immediately. He guesses, if she has remembered him from back in Jakku, then she can infer that his crimes go far beyond attacking her that night.

“You’re right, I suppose,” she speaks, her tone light again, and the most beautiful smile crawls across her lips. “I’m Rey.”

Rey… he has never heard the name spoken from her own lips. But it makes the short, single word sound even more regal and dream-like.

“I know,” he answers, still aware of the endearing stairwell behind him that offers a quick escape, if he so desires.

“I imagine you do,” she acknowledges, though she doesn’t answer how. Perhaps she assumes he knows this much about her at least, since he had tried dragging her off into the night before. “But I believe you and I are in need of starting over.”

He looks into her eyes in bewilderment and uncontained eagerness, painfully aware of how childish he must look.

Start over? Does that mean… how could she not be angry with him? How is she not questioning him, demanding to know what he intended to do with her that night?

She acts as if she doesn’t need to know. As if she already knows his reasons.

“What is your name?” Rey asks him now, sounding as if she had expected him to have already given it to her by now. “I feel we are far past names with all we’ve seen of each other, yet I still don’t know yours.”

His name… for a moment, his mind has to scramble over what name to give her. The one he has been using for years, or the one he shudders to remember.

“Ren,” he answers, trying to search her face for a flicker of recognition. “My name is Kylo Ren.”

He knows his name is one spoken in hatred and fear among the streets of Exegol, and perhaps even further. But there is no such reaction that he can see coming from her eyes. Nothing but warmth. Just like before, in the square.

Kylo unconsciously takes a step back when the silence continues. He’s always marveled at how deadly silent the church could be, despite its enormity and the many people who grace it. Strange, how the most grand place in the world can be the most quiet. But it’s never been this quiet, with someone here standing right in front of him, while he feels his heart and head ache in wonder, waiting for her to strike him or curse him or show some emotion other than that wide eyed curiosity.

“Kylo,” she speaks softly, and his heart jumps at hearing his name spoken in such a gentle way off such a beautiful voice. “I’m sorry if I’ve intruded upon you. I did not mean to disturb you, I just…”

“You haven’t,” Kylo assures her quickly. She smiles in return, as if his response amuses her.

“I seem to have given you a significant fright when you came down from the stairwell,” she points out. “I didn’t mean to be in your way if you were coming down to prayer.”

His eyes narrow in confusion for a moment.

“Prayer?” he questions, unable to help the tiny smile at the corner of his mouth. “Do you mean pray?”

Now her expression furrows with confusion, until her eyes light up again in realization.

“Sorry,” she grins. “Obviously I am very unfamiliar with this place. Therefore, I do not know when I am intruding on someone’s business.”

Kylo’s face goes hot and he shakes his head before thinking.

“No, I wasn’t… I was just…”

“Watching me?” she offers, but her voice is calm and unaffected. Though Kylo’s blood goes cold and his eyes lower in shame, she still does not show anger towards him. “I don’t feel you mean to harm me,” she tells him, taking a step forward, closer to him, making up for the step he had taken further into the stairwell.

“I don’t,” he replies, his voice low against the stone walls. “I mean I… I never wanted to hurt you.”

He waits again for her to ask why then he had attacked her that night in the city. But still, she seems merely intrigued by his responses and forgiving in her stare.

“How did you get here?” he finally wonders aloud, feeling his body relax slightly. “I never thought… I didn’t think you would…”

“The guards were after me,” she explains, her eyes finally darkening significantly. “I was dancing in the streets… they’ve reason to arrest me now.”

Something in his throat tightens at this, makes his hands clench into fists as a burst of sharp anger suddenly sprouts through him, that suddenly calms when he remembers where he is.

He is in the church. Rey is standing before him. With him. Nothing can harm her now, not legally. And while he is with her, he surely won’t let a single thing get anywhere close to hurting her. Not her. Not this beautiful, mysterious, kind young woman who has given him more than she can possibly imagine by showing him a bit of forgiveness and mercy when he, of all people, is the least deserving of it.

His eyes jump up to look quickly around the hallway to make sure there is no one watching them from afar, before swallowing down his fears and doubts, and reaching his arm out to her, his hand held out as an offering.

It’s dangerous for her here just as much as it is outside with the guards running rampant. They will hunt her down at every turn now that she has been put in their wrath, he knows that. But here… Hux will be furious if he finds her. He seems insistent on believing that she is an evil witch who will spread darkness over everything they have done. For whatever reason he had wanted her captured and brought here that night, it can’t have been anything good.

Kylo can not let him find her.

“Come with me,” he speaks in the most clear voice he’s ever been able to muster in front of her.

Chapter Text

Her hand is small and warm in his. It makes Kylo wish the thick leather gloves weren’t enclosing his hands so that his skin may touch against hers. But he’s just pleased that she had taken his hand at all, that he can’t feel that he has much to mourn about.

The only thing that frightens him is how comfortable he is quickly growing with letting this woman see so much of him. He had been embarrassed by not having his mask to cover his face before, until his thoughts soon drifted to thinking about how wearing it around her would be wrong. And now here he is wishing to remove his gloves so that he may feel what the skin of her hand feels like.

“Where are we going?” she asks, her voice curious as she runs quickly behind him, her footsteps melding with his as they echo through the stairwell that twists and turns into a seemingly endless tunnel.

“You should stay up here,” he calls back to her, his heart beating impossibly fast with a combination of excitement and adrenaline. “Nobody goes up this way.”

“Why?” she questions, her hand gripping his more tightly as she tries to keep up with him, making him realize his strides are incredibly long compared with hers, so he slows down as much as his legs will allow. “I don’t-”

“There are people here who will give you up to the guards,” he chooses to say, reasoning that it isn’t completely a lie.

Before she can question him any further, they finally come out of the stairwell, up onto the flat platform that creaks slightly as they both step onto it.

Kylo looks back at Rey to see her blinking a bit at the bright, sunlit room after coming out of the darkened stairwell and into the bell tower that constantly shines with the light from the outside pouring in through the empty spaces in the walls that allow the chiming of the bells to reach all throughout the city.

Kylo has been up here enough times to grow used to the rather jarring sight of the large room. But obviously, Rey was not expecting the drastic change in scenery.

“Wow,” she whispers quietly to herself as she looks up at the rainbow colored patterns glinting around the stone walls made from the sun shining off the golden bells overhead, adding a new layer of light to the entire room.

Kylo almost feels himself taken to an entirely new place as he watches her, seeing her body lit up from the sparkling light showering down upon her. He’s never been up here with anyone else before. He never considered how all the strange lights would look glowing down on a person standing on the platform.

“What is this place?” she asks, her look of awe not fading as she steps further into the tower.

Once again, he is startled, and slightly amused by how strange all of this is to her, when it feels as if it has been his entire life.

“This is where I stay,” he tells her as she crosses the platform to the large window overlooking the city below, her hands placed on the ridge as she leans down and looks out.

He quickly walks forward as well, something in him worrying as if she might leap out and fly away.

“You’ll be safe here,” he promises her, his feet coming to a halt a few feet behind her. “The guards can’t arrest you if you’re in the church and you’ve claimed sanctuary.”

She still doesn’t turn around.

“And I… I can make sure nothing happens to you here,” he adds, wondering if perhaps she is unsure about staying somewhere with the man who had attacked her in the streets. “It’s the least I can do.”

She finally turns around, and the sadness in her eyes isn’t as strong as he thought it might be.

He’s not a fool. Someone like her yearns to be free and adventurous and he’s practically told her she has no hope of leaving this place without being captured. Not something a person would be eager to agree to, despite the excited rush he feels in his chest when he thinks about her staying up here with him.

She gives him a small smile nonetheless, though her eyes suddenly shy away from him, as if she were overwhelmed by how close he had come to her, making him take a couple steps back.

But her eyes soon raise up above them, where a pattern of grand, shining gold bells hover in unmoving silence in the tower.

A smile as magnificent as the bells glows across her face as she steps around him, her eyes mesmerized by the display above her.

“They’re beautiful,” she gasps as she gazes upon them, and Kylo watches her eagerly, his heart rising in his chest.

“Would you like to see them?” he asks, stepping forth and taking her hand in his without a moment’s hesitation. She nods happily, not tearing her hand away or even flinching at his touch.

He leads her toward the ladder that goes up into the rafters, the array of platforms and beams he walks through everyday of his life, only this time he is not alone.

“Why are there so many?” Rey asks, shielding her eyes once they reach the first platform as the sunset reflects harshly off of one of the smaller silver bells near them.

“Because there are so many different things they have to ring for,” he explains. “Everyday and night the bell ringers come up here and ring the bells from when we wake up to when we sleep.”

Rey gives a small laugh of disbelief as she continues to stare around the maze of brass, gold, and silver in astonishment.

“These are the ones that ring for communion,” he tells her, pointing at the ones before them now. “And the ones back there are used for funeral processions, and the ones behind those are for Easter Day.”

Seeing her lean over toward his gesture with fascination, he moves forward, pulling her along behind him, walking across the beam to the other side of the tall tower, where the next ladder leads up to the consecutive row of bells.

“Those are rung on Christmas Eve,” he continues, pointing her gaze towards a set of gold and silver bells up on the next level, before pointing lower down to a set of brass bells. “And these are for Pentecost Day.”

She laughs, her eyes growing more excited and curious with every word he speaks, so he keeps going. He smiles, his heart racing as he pulls her up ladder after ladder, leading her all the way through the ascending tower, showing her the bells that ring for evening mass, morning mass, St. Valentine’s Day, and annunciation, and Good Friday, and every other day and event he knows of.

He loses himself in leaping around the tower with Rey running to keep up, her hand still firmly in his, that he is joltingly pulled out of his joyous trance when they arrive upon the three gold bells at the top of the tower.

Rey can sense his immediate change of mood, her smile fading as she watches his expression while he lets go of her hand while he takes in the sight of the three bells that have acted as three searing marks in his heart ever since he first heard them ring.

“What are these?” she asks, her voice soft, as if she were afraid of disturbing the three still bells that hang waiting patiently to be rung again.

Kylo’s eyes fall to the smaller one first, whose somber ring carries people through times of immeasurable sorrow.

“When children die, they’re set at peace with this bell,” he tells her, feeling the ache in his head and chest that comes whenever he hears the identifiable tune from the hollow of the little bell.

He wondered at times about the parents he can not remember clearly. Wondered if they ever feared one of this bell’s rings was for him. Or if they even cared.

He turns next to the larger bell that hangs just above the small one.

“This one rings when the ships set out to sea,” he speaks, his thoughts now wandering to the times he’s stood on the roof of the cathedral, unseen by anyone in the world as he watched the ships crawling slowly out toward the ocean miles from here, thinking about the number of sailors who would perhaps never return, or be rewarded with the glory of a new land and the excitement of a new adventure.

“And this one?” Rey asks him.

His attention is forced to the final bell before him, the great gold patterned structure whose rings have caused him the most selfish torment.

“When lovers exchange vows on their wedding day,” he replies, his voice sounding unfamiliar to himself.

His eyes go to her as she turns away from him to view the final of the bells before them.

Every instance in which the beautiful bell has ever rung, Kylo has felt the bite of pain, of jealousy that yet another man has found comfort and happiness with a woman who has consented to share her life with him. While knowing that there is no one on this Earth who would ever want to show such devotion to him.

Rey suddenly jumps in startlement, looking down as the sound of a door closing followed by heavy footsteps echoes through the tower.

Kylo quickly glances out at the rapidly setting sun outside. Has it gotten so late already?

He grabs onto Rey’s hand again, leading her back down the ladder, down across the beams and platforms from which they came, desperate to be out of sight from the ringers that have come to ring the bells for evening mass.

Kylo leaps out onto the closest balcony, and Rey is able to keep up, though she hobbles a bit once they are out in the open and she gets a quick glimpse of exactly how far up they are from the ground down below.

Before either of them can speak, the cry of the mass bells rumbles through the tower, booming up through them and causing the both of them to clasp their hands against either side of their heads.

“You listen to this everyday?!” Rey questions, her face twisted in slight agony as Kylo tries to hear her over the noise coming from the tower just beside them.

“Well, I… I usually have a helmet on!” he informs her.

In a moment, she laughs, looking somewhere between confused and delighted as she lowers her hands from her head. Kylo slowly follows suit, cringing as the thundering bells vibrate through his ears.

Rey steps closer to him, so that her body is almost touching his, but Kylo is too surprised to back away. She takes his hand in hers now, raising it up before placing her other hand on his shoulder.

Breathing in amazement, Kylo places his hand around her waist as if it were second nature, feeling his pulse racing at feeling the warmth of her skin through her thin white tunic.

She takes the lead without a moment's hesitation, and soon she is pulling him along spinning and skipping across the thin balcony surrounding the bell tower, dancing to the sound of the bells beside them.

Kylo is not sure if he is dreaming or not. It all seems so cruel, like a hallucination teasing him with what he can never have. But for a reason he can not fathom, he is soon the one leading her dancing about the tower, spinning her in his arms and laughing merrily with her as they leap and dance to the sweet music of the beautiful bells that have carried him through every instance of joy and sorrow in his life.

* * *

After the sun has set and the sky is slowly turning from a deep purple into a sparkling dark blue, Kylo shows Rey up to the spot on the roof where he often sits to watch the city without the fear of anyone seeing him. He knows now that the two of them blend seamlessly into the shadows of the dark roof as his eyes scan over the square below them where people are finishing up their business for the day and hurrying back to their homes, and her eyes are glued to the wondrous sky stretching out above them.

“Are you afraid?” he asks her.

He likes how gentle his voice sounds in the quiet, here alone with her. He sounds almost as if he could be nothing more than a normal man talking easily with a friend, or someone he knows well.

“I’m not sure,” Rey answers him after a moment without looking away from the stars. “Perhaps everything hasn’t sunk in yet. Although, I am… worried.”

“Worried?”

He leans forward almost instinctively, stopping himself from reaching his arm out towards her.

“About Finn. My friend,” she explains, now turning to face him. He sees sadness in her eyes. “Surely he’s been wondering where I’ve gone, if I’ve been arrested or not. And I’m worried about all of the people who…”

“The Resistance,” he finishes for her when she pauses.

Her eyes sink away from him with uncertainty, and he is not sure what he should think. What he should tell her.

“It won’t take long for them to figure out that you’re here,” he promises. "Gossip in town spreads fast. And once they do know… they’ll understand that this is the safest place for you right now.”

He looks away from her, almost wanting to take a large gulp of the cold night air. He doesn’t want to look at her shocked expression, and he prays she does not ask him why in the world he would want to do anything good for the Resistance, which he supposes does include keeping her safe. Because he can’t explain himself to her.

But thankfully, after a brief few moments of still silence, she only replies with two words.

“Thank you.”

She slowly turns her head back out towards the city, though her eyes are kept down as she seems to be thinking something over. And when she says nothing more for a long while, he decides to reply with a question of his own he has been keeping for days now.

“Why did you help me?”

It does not take longer than a moment for her to look back at him again, but her expression is unreadable when his eyes turn to meet her gaze.

“Why did you give me water?” he continues, feeling every burning question he’s been keeping for so long yearn to come bursting forth. “Why did you sit with me? Why did you clean my wounds?”

“You were hurt,” she answers, and her voice is as guarded as her face.

“Did you not want to let me suffer?” he insists, turning closer towards her so that their bodies form a small circle against the roof, as if they were turning themselves inward, away from the world. “Did you not want to see something far worse happen to me after… after what I…”

He holds his breath as he waits for her response, watching her face closely.

But still, there is not a hint of resentment.

“You’re a good person,” she speaks, with such certainty that Kylo feels himself freeze in shock. “I believe you’ve been led down the wrong path. Perhaps that had something to do with what happened that night. But I’ve known from the moment I saw you that day in Jakku that you’ve meant me no harm.”

He stares at her with incredulity, but her eyes are earnest as they look right back into his.

“I… I don’t understand,” he shakes his head, feeling humbled by the gentleness of her words and the still undying compassion she seems so persistent in showing him. “How could you tell all of that about me if you don’t know who I am?”

Her mouth opens and closes, her eyes switching to a more mischievous look as she grins at him.

“Don’t you know?” she questions, her tone joking. “I’ve been taught to read people’s fortunes.”

Chapter Text

Days pass, and Kylo keeps Rey well hidden up in the bell tower. He tries giving her space and time to be alone, but he ends up spending almost every moment with her, making sure she has everything she needs and that no one has spotted her and that no one comes to try and take her away.

He gives her one of the unused rooms across the way from his. He tells her she can go anywhere she wishes, but advises not to go up the ladder leading towards the second bell tower, being that it has been under severe construction as of late. Though he wonders if he is hovering around her too much, she seems more than comfortable having him near. In fact, she seems to be interested only by him in the days she spends up here, though he gives her every book in the studies to keep her occupied throughout the long hours of the day, all books he’s read before, some a hundred times over. She seems more curious about what he has to say about them rather than reading them, which he is more than happy to tell her.

So, tonight, instead of bringing her evening meal to her as he has done several times now, he has prepared something for them to eat together.

He had been a mess of nerves when he’d asked her to dine with him in the morning after bringing her breakfast. In fact, he was shocked she had been able to make out what he’d said, since he’d half mumbled, half blurted the question in a jumble of words that hardly even sounded intelligible in his own ears.

But she had smiled and told him she would be honored before turning back towards the window in the bedroom she constantly sits at to eat her breakfast.

The sunset had come almost too quickly, and yet far too late as he had waited for the day to pass, pacing madly about the bell tower, the clonking of his boots sounding as if they were beginning to rock the entire platform after a few hours.

Now, Kylo is painfully aware of how much his hands refuse to cease shaking as he lays out the small silver plates and bowls of food and two goblets of wine, his head constantly turning up towards the little hallway where Rey could come strolling out at any second before he has calmed himself down.

He switches the placement about ten times. He re-dusts the table and chairs even more than that. The table is just an old work spot that hasn’t been used for years, except when Kylo would occasionally sit out here and look out over the ledge of the large open window down at the city.

As prepared as he had convinced himself he was, he still jumps when Rey appears out of the shadows of the hallway and steps into the large, open space of the bell tower, her eyes filled with warmth and joy as she looks upon the sad little supper display.

Kylo finds himself too transfixed on her to really focus on her reaction.

She has dressed herself in a simple, light grey tunic that hugs her hips and along her thighs where her matching leggings then reach down to her knees. The top of the shirt stops just above her breasts, the fabric reaching up to circle around her neck, leaving her shoulders completely exposed.

She has done her hair up into a beautiful, complex braid with small flower petals twisted in her dark brown curls, petals Kylo recognizes from the flowers that grow out on one of the balconies around the tower.

“This is lovely,” she breathes before he can say the same thing about her. She walks forward, her eyes on the supper plates set quite inelegantly on the old work table.

“It’s not much,” he insists, even as she continues to ogle at the tiny plates and bowls of steaming food. “I… I should have gotten some candles, the sun’s almost down and we won’t be able to see very well…”

“Nobody has ever done anything like this for me before,” she tells him, looking up to meet his eyes, a gesture that almost knocks him to the ground. “It couldn’t be more perfect.”

Kylo allows himself a small smile at her words, before quickly running around her to pull out her chair. And to his joyous disbelief, he sees her blush as she sits down and he helps push her in.

She waits for him to sit down as well, her head leaning over her own plate, as if unsure of what she should do with it.

Kylo reminds himself that food like this would not at all be familiar to someone like her. The food the church receives is the finest and most expensive in the land. Pasta, fine meats and vegetables, cheese, and fruits are not common amongst even a well-off merchant, let alone the poor.

Luckily, the enticing aroma of the meal seems to be enough to encourage her to grab up her fork and begin poking around, though Kylo notices her glancing up a couple of times to watch how he cuts the meat and stabs the vegetables onto the prongs before attempting to copy his movements.

However, he soon ends up being the one to watch her as she amusingly loses herself in the supper before her, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she seems to savor every bite with unmatched wonder.

“This is amazing,” she finally exhales after taking a gulp of wine, shaking her head in surprise after. “The food here is just as incredible as everything else in this place.”

“The church is offered only the finest food in the country,” he tells her as he picks anxiously through the contents of his own plate, trying to look occupied with his own meal instead of focusing on her as she scoops up the last of her pasta and finishes off the wine before turning her attention toward the open window overlooking the city.

Kylo doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone finish a meal that quickly.

She stands up and moves casually toward the open wall, lifting herself up onto the ledge and hanging her feet off of the edge, her hands resting on the stone as she looks up at the sky.

She doesn’t want you a cold and reprimanding voice in Kylo’s head reminds him as he stares at her perfect form outlined against the twinkling firelight coming out from open windows in the crowd of buildings and homes below them. Stop staring at her that way. She will never feel for you like that.

Kylo looks back down at his plate of unfinished food, clasping the silver dish in his gloved hands before standing up from his chair and pushing himself up over the ledge, beside Rey.

He offers her the plate when she looks over at him and sees the spark of delight and hunger in her eyes even before she eagerly reaches to accept it from him.

“Is this how you spend all of your evening meals?” she asks, looking back over the darkened city as she begins snacking on the pieces of fruit and cheese on the plate.

“Not really,” he admits, following her gaze. “I mostly just… eat in my chambers, I suppose.”

“I think if I lived here, this is where I’d eat every night,” she grins, her eyes relaxed and awestruck as she swings her legs, her heels kicking softly against the stone wall as Kylo glances carefully down at the balcony reaching out a few feet below them.

You do live here, he wants to say to her, almost as some kind of reassurance that she can look at this beautiful view every night, and always have food like this whenever she should ask for it. But he says nothing, afraid that reminding her of the fact that she is very much trapped here, will lower her spirits. Even now, he can see on the edges of the church a station of guards pacing near one of the entrances, no doubt under command to arrest the scavenger girl as soon as she steps foot outside.

He assumes that she has been aware of them too over the past two days, but perhaps chooses to forget about them as best she can.

“How long have you been here?” she asks him, turning her head towards him and making him freeze, embarrassed that she caught him staring at her, no doubt with an impure look on his face.

“What?” he asks, his face quickly turning red.

“How many years have you lived here?” she clarifies.

The question surprises him, enough so that it takes him a moment before he can answer it.

“I… I think I was…” he struggles to remember as his eyes look down towards the balcony below them.

He had been sent here, hadn’t he? But when… where did he live before? He can’t remember anything outside of Notre Dame. Only the images, the glimpses he has in dreams sometimes. A cold island, a breeze ripping painfully through the thin walls of an abandoned hut… dimmer still, the memory of the warm sun on his face, his feet struggling through tall, thick grass, his small hand held tightly by a woman leading him back somewhere…

“I really can’t remember,” he replies honestly, stopping his mind from sinking down into that hopeless abyss of thoughts.

“Did your parents raise you here?” she asks him, her voice laced with a gentle, non-intruding tone, letting him know he does not have to answer.

He wants to answer her though. Only…

“They left me here.” His voice is guarded as he speaks now. As it usually is. “I don’t remember my father at all, and my mother… she didn’t want me.”

He hopes Rey will either be satisfied with this answer, or maybe uncomfortable enough to move on from the subject, but instead, when his eyes lift up slightly to steal a glance at her expression, he sees that her eyes look somewhat… suspicious.

“Who told you that?” is her next inquiry.

He turns his head fully back to her now in shock.

“Well, someone had to have told you that, if you say you don’t remember,” she shrugs, keeping her stare locked onto him, still expecting an answer.

But he doesn’t give her one. Instead, he turns back away from her, hearing that cruel voice echo in his mind again.

How could she love you? After all you’ve done?

It doesn’t matter how he feels. It doesn’t matter that he falls more in love with her everyday. It can’t change who he is. If Rey even knew a thing about him at all, she would be disgusted. She would never want to look at him again, much less speak to him.

Perhaps that is why he stops answering her questions.

Rey had been eager to go back to the roof again after dinner. So Kylo had followed her out through the window, marveling at how only two days ago, it was him leading her around. Now she scales up the structure as if she’s known it her whole life.

Actually, Kylo is a bit nervous once they do get up to the roof and she begins to leap and dance along the eaves, though he keeps himself distanced, thinking she is smart enough to be able to keep herself from tumbling off the edge. He catches her every morning dancing along the ledges of the balconies, just all by herself, to the soft music that plays from within the cathedral as the sun rises each day. Almost as if her whimsical movement blesses the beginning of the day to be just as beautiful and exciting as she is. And she seems to move about the many dips and ledges easy enough to not require any guidance from him.

Besides, she couldn’t look happier.

“I wasn’t born a scavenger,” she says to him, her arms outstretched as she walks along the heads of the gargoyles, balancing with ease. She stops only to turn her head over towards him briefly. “I’m sure that much you could already tell.”

It’s strange to hear her say it. Kylo had thought it was simply all in his head.

“You don’t look much like one,” he admits.

“No,” she chuckles, jumping down from the gargoyles and landing on the flat surface of the rooftop, making him feel a lot better. “I don’t know who my real parents are. I only get these… images, I guess you could say of my mother…”

Her face changes, and she quickly goes back to climbing about the slanted towers.

“Anyway… the gypsies in Jakku took me in. They raised me… taught me all their beautiful culture. And then I learned how to survive on my own.”

She smiles mischievously at him again as she swings from the structures around him, and he follows her with his eyes.

“I grew up scavenging through abandoned buildings that had fallen to ruins,” she tells him, leaping down and landing right beside him.

“I see,” he grins up at her as she sits beside him against the dip of the roof. “Among the many tricks you learned?”

“Many,” she nods, her eyes wide and teasing.

Kylo smiles to himself, turning back down to look at his feet, twisting one of his black boots up and down against the grey stone roof.

“You… you said something the other night about… that you could read fortunes?”

She looks amused at his question.

“Yes.”

“I was wondering if… if you could read mine? Now?”

Her eyes look suddenly bright with excitement, as if she hadn’t expected him to ask this.

“Of course,” she answers happily. “I thought you’d never ask.”

They make their way back down to level ground, one of the verandas that wraps around the rooms on the level just below the tower. Where the maze of white petaled flowers twist and curve around the ledges.

Rey sits down on the ground, her legs crossed in front of her, and Kylo copies her movements, feeling his heart begin to race in fear.

“Now give me your palm,” she instructs, holding out her own hand in waiting. “And you may have to give me a moment. It’s been quite a while since I was taught this, I may be a bit unpracticed.”

Kylo’s teeth clench together as he shoves his hand out before he can change his mind.

“You’ll need to take that off,” she smiles, nodding down at his glove-covered palm.

He moves quickly to rip the glove off, the cold chill of the night air hitting his bare hand immediately. An unfamiliar sensation that he hasn’t felt in… how long?

He shouldn’t be doing this. All of this is wrong. If someone were to come up here and see them…

But he wanted this. He asked for this for a reason. And he trusts her.

So he offers her his hand with confidence this time, and his eyes look straight into her warm, hazel colored ones.

Both of her hands cup his, as she turns it slightly so that she can study it, her eyes narrowed as if she were reading a complicated inscription.

“You’ve made many mistakes,” she starts as Kylo’s eyes follow hers, where she is staring at the pattern of lines in his palm, wondering what she is seeing in them. “You’re pretending to be something you’re not. And yet… you yearn for love.”

He startles at her words, his eyes snapping back up to her face, but she continues looking at his hand, seemingly unbothered by this revelation.

He wonders if what she’s “seeing” is really true, but he feels compelled to listen anyway. For all he has been told about gypsies and scavengers harnessing witchcraft for their tricks, he really doesn’t see her doing anything other than looking at his palm. Though he’s not quite sure what he expected. Her reaching out to the Devil or making a blood sacrifice perhaps.

His fears that frightened him so deeply only seconds before seem so foolish now as he watches her.

An odd look goes over her face. She is still for a very long time, just staring at his hand while she holds it, but she says nothing.

He’s about to ask her what’s wrong, but then she blinks, and the odd look washes away just as soon as it had appeared, and she is pushing his hand back toward him.

“What you are seeking will only come after a difficult sacrifice,” she tells him, her eyes now looking up into his as his hand remains frozen, still half outstretched towards her. “But it will be well earned.”

He wants to ask her what she means. He wants to ask her if she can really see all of this about himself, his past and his future, or if she is just making it up.

But one look at her face, and he knows he won’t get answers to any of these questions. And he’s not sure if he got what he had been hoping for or not.

What had he been hoping for? That she would see how much he cared for her and profess she cared for him just the same?

“Have you ever read your own fortune?” he inquires, resting his hand back in his lap, glancing down at it for a moment, seeing his pale skin stand against the black of his robes.

She gives a soft laugh as she uncrosses her legs and moves to lean against the side of the balcony.

“It doesn’t work that way,” she tells him, sighing as she looks up at the sky. “Though I have been tempted to try. But one wrong move with fortune telling can undo the gates of hell.”

She grins a bit until she turns to look at him.

“That was a joke,” she clarifies once she sees the expression on his face.

After sitting in silence for a moment, Kylo moves himself along the balcony to where she is sitting, following her gaze as she stares into the glittering sky.

“The stars have always made me feel at home,” she speaks, her voice sounding far away, dream-like. “They look the same, everywhere. My mother said that to me once. They connect us… they always remind me we’re all just… living together. Under one sky.”

Kylo looks over at her face, feeling his heart flutter in his chest as she gives the most lovely, warming smile he’s seen from her yet.

“Looking at them always reminded me that there is something out there for me,” she tells him, and his eyes drop down to where her hand has moved from her lap, now resting only inches from him against the stone. “And that I’d find it, one day. Even if it feels like it’s taking so long.”

He waits for her to move again, to move her hand closer until it touches him. But she stays unmoving, and it takes him some time to realize it’s his turn.

His uncovered hand touches against hers, and she opens it to let his palm touch against hers, before closing her fingers around his.

“You’ll always be at home here,” he promises, his voice filled with so much more he wants to tell her. He wants to beg her to stay here with him. To forget about the rest of the world.

But he doesn’t want to have to plead this to her. He wants her to want to stay. Everyday he hopes she falls more in love with this place as he does with her, and that she will want to be nowhere else.

But it is hopeless. Deep down, he knows that it is only a matter of time. Everything about Rey longs for freedom. And how long can one be a prisoner, even in a prison as glorious as this?

For now, he can be content with her holding his hand as they both stare up at the star-filled sky, each with their own wishes echoing silently in their heads.

Rey then sighs, tilting her head back against the railing.

“Kylo?” she asks, her tone abruptly pulling the both of them out of their hypnotic state. “Do you think it would be possible for us to sneak out of here one night?”

Chapter Text

Sneaking out of the church takes less stress and difficulty than Kylo had imagined. Apparently, Rey had indeed been paying very close attention to the guards not so subtly surrounding each and every entrance. And once Kylo took a closer look in the few passing days, he discovered that not only are their routes predictable, but their attention spans as well.

So the plan is made that in five days time, they would make their quiet getaway, slipping down along Notre Dame’s shadowy walls just after sundown, and return back within six hours, unbeknownst to anyone in the world but them that they had ever been gone.

Kylo, naturally, is so fearful of the idea, that the five days seem to pass too quickly. He doesn’t know what to expect. He’s not sure if Rey will want to come back. He’s not sure if this all may be a ploy so that she can run off and leave him as soon as she has the opportunity. He doesn’t know if they will get caught and executed on the spot. Surely Hux or anyone else at the church will not come to his defense if he should be caught with the scavenger girl. That much has already been proven, and a flogging this time around will seem like a reward compared to what will await him. And what should happen to her if… ?

Therefore, he swears to himself that, no matter what happens, even if she does mean to run from him, that he will do everything in his power to see to it that nobody sees her leave tonight.

She is waiting for him, as planned, on the very veranda where she had first suggested the impossible idea.

As he steps out into the almost fully darkened sky, he first sees her silhouette outlined against the purple light. Her body is adorned by a form fitting tunic, the same style she always wears, although this one is dyed in a pattern of dark grays. And when she turns around, he marvels at her soft brown hair that is hanging freely down past her shoulders, pulled back only to show her lovely face, bright with excitement as she sees him.

“Are you ready?” she asks him, brushing right over to him as he walks out from the archway.

“Where are we going?” he asks her. She takes his hand, pulling him over to the ledge where there is a spot for them to jump down.

“You’ll see,” she replies secretively. “I’ve heard rumors about places like this back in Jakku. And the gypsies in the Resistance told me about it, where to find it. Trust me, you’ll love it!”

She speaks with such confidence and elation that Kylo finds he has no hesitation.

In just a second, they have leapt over the edge, landing gracefully on the small platform jutting out beside a group of statues.

Kylo has climbed about these obstacles before, sheerly out of boredom in the dead of night, so he is confident in his ability as they discreetly move themselves from level to level, and Rey seems to be able to handle herself well enough despite the unfamiliar terrain. He doesn’t quite know what the abandoned structures in Jakku were like, but it would appear that they are similar to the walls of Notre Dame. Her footing does not falter once.

They only have to pause and huddle within the shadows of the figures decorating the walls two times when a pair of guards pass by, changing their stations, as they had already anticipated. The brief interludes last only a handful of slightly agonized seconds before the street below them is vacant once more.

The feeling of their boots touching against the ground is almost startling. As if freedom is suddenly right at their fingertips. Real freedom, where they can run off wherever they want, somewhere nobody knows them… where they can be together with no consequence.

He can feel Rey’s excitement as she mindlessly grabs his hand again, keeping herself up against the stone as they sneak off into the darkness, the both of them stopping for a moment, listening intently for the sound of clanking footsteps, before running as lightly as possible across to the next closest building where they both press themselves back into the shadows again.

Neither of them says a word, but Rey keeps ahold of his hand the entire time they run through the darkened streets. She stops every now and then to look around her, looking as if she is trying desperately to figure out where she is. Kylo wishes he knew where they were going so that he might assist her, but she always ends up deciding on a direction, whispering back to him “I think this is the way…”

Kylo waits and waits as they travel through the dark, empty city, but she never lets go of him. She never runs toward a path that will lead her safely out of the city. A path that will lead her to freedom, perhaps back to her home or even back to the Resistance. It isn’t until they finally turn down a corner after coming out of an unbelievably closed in alleyway, that he realizes she isn’t going to leave him.

The building they come upon is lit in dim reds that make it stand out considerably from any other building surrounding it. But still, if one were simply strolling by on the streets, Kylo can’t imagine anyone ever even noticing the oddly shaped little wooden structure tucked quietly away past this small little alleyway that any decent man would not think to venture down.

Rey pulls him eagerly forward even though he tries to read the low hanging sign that is swaying and creaking ever so slightly in and out of the dim red light. She hesitates for a moment as she approaches the door before gently reaching out and knocking against it two times.

Kylo almost jumps as a small window slides open in the door. Rey leans forward slightly, still looking a bit unsure as she says something to the person behind the door that Kylo can’t hear.

A moment passes before the window snaps shut again, making him actually jump this time and the heavy wooden door finally inches open.

Rey smiles, grabbing his hand again and pulling him inside.

The air is hot and sweet smelling. The red lights illuminating the outside are all Kylo can see in the room they’ve entered. There are people everywhere. Dancing. Music that gives him a crawling, impure feeling fills the air that is mixed in with laughter, hollering, and whistling.

Kylo can’t even tell how big the room is. He can’t see any walls. Just the dark red lights mixed in with golden spot lights that illuminate the silhouettes of women behind curtains at every corner. Women whose bodies look close to bare, leaving every inch and line of their figures to be viewed by all.

Looking down below the curtains, Kylo can see men exchanging handfuls of coins with other men before disappearing behind these curtains.

Kylo feels his throat twist in horror and disgust. His blood runs hot in his face and every inch of his body. He wants to pull away, to go back out the door and run back to the church and pretend he never saw this place, never knew it existed much less set foot in it.

“Rey,” he manages out as she hangs back beside him, seeing his expression even in the shadowy lighting.

“Kylo.”

Her voice sounds so familiar, even in a place as terrible as this.

How did she know about this… has she been in places like this before? Has she…

“We can’t be here,” he tells her, feeling his body shrinking away, yet his heart thumping in his chest excitedly, as if something in him is more than interested in staying. “Rey, we… if we’re caught, we’ll be…”

“Kylo,” she speaks to him again.

This time, he looks down. His eyes stare straight into hers. This time, her voice is laced with comfort. Reassurance. As if her voice is bringing him back to her. Promising him everything is alright.

“I just want to dance,” she smiles.

Her smile strikes a heat in him he’s never felt before. She steps back towards the mess of people moving about in the center of the room.

“Dance with me,” she offers, still holding his hand as she backs away. And Kylo follows, as if his body is deciding for him.

Dance with her… that’s all she wants.

The air becomes more hot as they move towards the middle of the floor. But it’s a good kind of heat. A heat that sends Kylo’s pulse racing.

He has seen Rey dance many times before. But never like this. The way she uses her body, the way her hair sweeps across her face with her sharp movements, the way her hips, her legs move to the sound of the erotic music…

Kylo doesn’t know what to do at first. He can only stand back, watching her as she begins to meld with the crowd. But he never loses sight of her. It is as if she is the center of everything, as if one of those gold colored spotlights is shining down on her body as she dances.

He is pulled this way and that by the people rushing by, looking intoxicated by each other’s presence.

He sees men, men he recognizes from the guard, from the markets in the street… even men from the church. Men with women in their laps or their arms, some of them with two or three women at once.

It is as if he has stepped into an entirely different world. A reality that is not his own, a dream like he has never known before. Where nothing makes sense and it feels as if his senses could not be more confused.

But in the center of it all, is her. Rey. And she could not be more beautiful. So he goes to her.

He moves through the crowd as if it were nothing. His eyes, at first pulled this way and that, are only focused on her. His body is hot when he reaches her and his breath catches slightly when she throws her arms around his neck.

Her hands drag down along his body before she turns, her back against him as the music continues.

Kylo soon finds himself lost, uncaring about the setting around him. He feels Rey’s body writhing against his, her hands finding new places to caress over as he moves with her. He hears the music ranging in his ears, encouraging him to keep moving, to keep his hands on her as they go. His consciousness becomes fogged over, enraptured by the dance.

He doesn’t want to stop. He doesn’t want Rey to stop. For a while, he even thinks… he doesn’t want them to leave this place. Here, nobody cares. Desires are allowed to run free and rampant, no matter the rank or station of any man. And Kylo finds he craves it, like a man demolished by thirst who did not realize how good wine could taste.

Rey pulls him deeper and deeper into the lust-filled craze, and he lets her, his body and mind reeling in passions he never thought possible.

* * *

Finn has spent the past week searching every inch of Exegol, asking anyone he can if they know what happened to the scavenger girl. Nobody can answer him.

He asks all of the gypsies in town, everyone back at the Court of Miracles, all of the other Resistance members. He even asks Poe, after putting it off for as long as he can. He had run out of people to ask, and it had been almost three days with absolutely no sign of Rey anywhere. He had to ask, just to bring himself peace.

Poe didn’t say anything for a long time after he asked. And he didn’t even look up at Finn when he answered that he hadn’t seen her for the past few days either.

That was when he had truly begun to panic.

Up until now, he has been trying to rally everyone he can, convinced Rey must have been arrested. And if that is the case, they need to rescue her.

“There can’t be another explanation,” he is explaining to one of the gypsy leaders as they sit at one of the smaller tables in one of the meeting rooms. “The people in town told me that the guards were threatening to arrest her after she danced in the streets.”

“They say that anytime we do anything in the streets,” the man answers him, shaking his head and grinning through his grey streaked mustache. “And if they actually went through with all of their threats, there wouldn’t be enough room in the palace of justice for any of the real criminals.”

“It feels different with her,” Finn pleads. “It feels like… I’m not sure. But I know she’s in danger.”

Finn has seen enough women arrested for indecency. They were hanged if they were lucky, but more often, dismemberment would be the decided punishment.

Just thinking about it makes his blood boil. The thought that Rey could be sitting in a cell somewhere, waiting for whatever judgement the church could make up about her “impurity”.

“If you ask me,” the gypsy man continues, leaning back in his seat, “the girl ran off somewhere more exciting. You know most scavengers who come from somewhere as far as Jakku won’t be too satisfied with life here for too long. It isn’t in their nature.”

“She would never just leave,” Finn insists, shaking his head definitively. “She would have said something to me if she was going to leave. And besides, she wouldn’t even know where to go. She has no way of getting anywhere without help.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the man shrugs. “Sometimes the thrill of not knowing is what keeps you going. Otherwise, everyone would all be in the same place.”

“Come on,” Finn sighs, desperate for someone to see reason already. “You saw her. You met her. Do you really think she would just… leave? Without saying anything to any of us?”

The man looks down, the candlelight from the small lantern on the table flickering shadows along his face. He sighs, running a hand through his scraggly hair.

“No, I don’t think she would,” he finally admits. “But what do you suggest we do about it? I mean… if she has been arrested, there isn’t much we can do to help her now.”

“We can break her out,” Finn replies eagerly, sitting up straighter with renewed confidence. “There’s enough of us. If we all storm to the palace of justice, we can get her out. The people will stand with us. You know how much they love her, everyone fell in love with her the moment they saw her dance.”

The man looks thoughtful as he considers Finn’s words.

“I don’t doubt that there are many who would venture to save her from the hands of those vile creatures,” he hisses, darkness taking over his tone. “Poor thing’s the last one out of all of us who deserves to be at the mercy of such cruelty.”

Finn nods, knowing the man would agree.

“Then let’s not stand for it.”

Hux waits patiently in the darkened chamber deep within the recesses of the church. He instructed Captain Pryde that they would only ever be meeting at an hour as late as this, when the city is shrouded in complete darkness and anyone decent has shut themselves up in their homes. When no one will take notice of the archdeacon and Captain of the guard meeting in such a discreet place.

He paces as he waits, choosing not to take advantage of the invitingly empty seat in front of the trembling flames lighting the fireplace. The flames that he tries his best to keep his eyes away from. But even as he keeps his eyes straight ahead of him, the quivering flickers taunt at the side of his vision, and everytime, he swears her figure is dancing in the fire.

More witchcraft he thinks as he paces, his hands clasped behind him, fingers twirling about the smooth steel blade hidden in the sleeves of his robes. More tricks and deception trying to get him to swear himself to the Devil.

But she won’t have him. Not now. He’s gotten ahead of her at last. While she has been busy hiding up in the bell tower, bewitching Ren with her seductive spells, dragging him off into the dead of night to do ungodly things, Hux has been watching. Planning. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to finally take the first step in putting an end to her sinful ways. And now he has it.

Captain Pryde does not knock before he enters, but Hux had been expecting such behavior from the self-important man.

He ceases his pacing, turning towards the door as the Captain crosses the threshold, keeping his face expressionless.

“The church has been surrounded for the past week,” he begins before Hux has the opportunity to even speak. “I’ve had all my best men at every entrance, all hours of the day. You said she’d try escaping within the first day she came here, and still there hasn’t been any sign of-”

“Calm yourself, Captain,” Hux speaks evenly, keeping his form unmoving, his hands clasped calmly behind his back. “I did not summon you here to scold you on your efforts.”

Captain Pryde looks him up and down, the ever present sneer on his face flickering with insignificance.

“You find that hard to believe?” Hux offers, enjoying seeing the Captain stifled with fury before him. He knows very well the man is not keen on taking orders from anyone, especially a refined man of the church who has never seen a lick of combat in his life. But the Captain knows that one unflattering word from the archdeacon could land even a soldier as revered as Pryde hanging from the gallows.

“I’d appreciate it if you would inform me why you have summoned me here,” he replies, that well mannered, trained and disciplined soldier beginning to waver just a bit.

“Of course,” Hux nods, turning and walking towards the chair stationed before the fireplace. “I wanted to confirm with you that all of your men are prepared to be called to witness that the scavenger girl has indeed been within this church for the past week.”

“They are.”

“And that she never set foot outside once.”

“Of course sir. We would have had her the second she did.”

Hux stops once he is behind the chair, unfolding his arms from his back as he gazes into the flames that feel as if they are trying to burn their way through his very being.

“You spoke with one of my top soldiers without informing me,” Pryde continues while Hux’s gloved fingers run up and down the handle of the small, sharp blade in his hands.

“Did I?”

“You asked him to take something from one of the scavenger scum lying in the streets while he was arresting him. What was it?”

Hux feels his eyes ache as he keeps them gazing into the bright hot orange flames caressing against each other in the fireplace. It’s a good ache. He feels it spread through him, a comforting heat.

Yes. This is necessary. This is right…

“I don’t know where this fascination with these people comes from,” Pryde speaks, his cold, unfeeling voice cutting through the peaceful burning coursing through Hux’s mind and body. “And I don’t want to. But I do know that if you continue to be intent on wasting all our resources on this one insignificant little whore, then the real problems in the real world, which you seem to have forgotten about, are going to increase and overtake us before we know it. And then what will we have to say to the prophet? That we let this city become overrun by thieves and criminals because the archdeacon of the church became too preoccupied with a desirable harlot?”

“You really are good at your job,Captain,” Hux allows, captivated by the sparkling flames reflected upon the blade. “But you are far from the smartest man I’ve met.”

“I beg your pardon!” the Captain demands, his anger finally boiling over as Hux hears his boots beginning to march in his direction. “Perhaps I should inform the prophet of your distraction, and then you-”

The Captain’s sentence never reaches its end, as Hux turns toward him once he is just the right distance away, shoving the knife with a confident jab into the man’s stomach.

Hux’s eyes furrow in concentration, his hand shaking as he ignores the startled coughing and sputtering from the man impaled on the other end of the sharp little knife. He quickly extracts the weapon, blood flying down from the wound and splattering against the fine threaded carpet on the floor, staining the green fabric red.

He hadn’t stuck in the correct place. Naturally.

He tries again, this time aiming towards the heart as he grabs the Captain firmly with his other hand before he can tumble away.

Something sparks in him as he hits the vital artery. Something that makes him take the knife out again and slam it into the helpless body just a few more times. Getting lost in his role, perhaps.

His hand releases the bloodied Captain, letting him fall with a thud to the floor, blood dripping from his mouth and the wounds in his chest.

Hux’s hands still shake, now more violently as he tosses the knife to the ground and yanks off his blood soaked gloves before tossing them into the fire.

“Yes… yes yes,” he mutters to himself, his hand running smoothing down his hair over and over again as his eyes jump between the dead body and the scarlet painted knife against the ground. “This will do… this will do…”

The murder looks frenzied, as if it happened unexpectedly… which it did for the poor fool, Hux realizes with shuddering amusement.

He rushes over to the locked box sitting on one of the many tables standing across the chamber, picking it up and slamming it against the edge of the table with all his might, breaking off the flimsy lock.

Sweeping up the handfuls of gold stored inside and dropping them into the pocket of his robes, he reaches up and unlatches the window nearby, throwing open the glass doors.

He turns and crosses to the door, looking back over the scene for a moment, before stepping out into the darkened corridor, closing the door behind him, leaving it unlocked and waiting for whatever unfortunate soul will be first to enter.

Chapter Text

Kylo feels as if he has slipped away. Or perhaps the world has slipped away from him. Soon he can’t even hear the music or feel the hot, pulsing bodies writhing around him. All he can feel is himself moving in ways he’s never moved before, while Rey brushes every inch of herself against him.

He wants it to last forever, and it feels as if it could. He doesn’t even notice they are moving at all, out of the bordello and back into the streets. The cold night air isn’t even enough to snap him out of his daze. He still feels as if he is merely dreaming, everything feeling far away and unreal as Rey pulls him along through the streets.

He waits with her in the shadows across from the church in the alleyway until the guards move from their post, and then they are climbing back up the walls, Kylo moving as if he were a puppet being maneuvered by something he can’t see.

Even after Rey pulls him up over the edge of the balcony and back towards the stairwell up the bell tower, he feels the ground tilting around him, making him stumble over his feet as he follows along behind her, hearing her laughter ring as sweet as when the music of the bells fill the tower.

Soon, his laughs are echoing too, as the two of them run through the darkened corridors in the bell tower, Rey leading him toward the doorway of her bed chamber.

Rey’s heart pounds in exhilaration as she leads Kylo past the threshold into her bed chamber, turning to face him, still laughing as she grabs his hands.

He’s out of breath, she can tell, as he practically falls into the room. His hands feel hot in hers, as if his skin were burning through the thick leather of his gloves.

She wishes he would take them off.

“I’m sure you’ve never done anything like that before,” she smiles as he laughs euphorically. “I told you it would be fun!”

The sound of her heart racing thuds in her ears as she looks up at him, the smile slowly fading from her face as she stares up at the man before her.

His breath is warm on her face, moving her hair slightly as his chest moves up and down, inches from touching hers. Her eyes trail up from the strong frame of his upper body towards his face, framed by that impossibly black hair that looks more tousled and out of place than it usually does.

She had found herself studying his hair more closely over the first few days she had spent here. She found she likes it quite a bit. There is something fascinating about how dark it looks splayed against his pale skin. How soft it looks whenever the wind would catch it when they were up on the roof. Something about it makes her stomach do odd flips.

As time has gone on, she has also found that her studying eyes have made their way to his face.

She liked looking at it when he wasn’t paying attention. How concentrated his eyes always look. How his lips always seemed to be turned into a frown whenever he was looking away from her, and then turned into that nervous looking half smile whenever he did look at her.

His lips aren’t turned that way now.

They’re open slightly as his breathing steadies. So close to her face, she feels her fingers ache to reach up and brush across the beautiful looking skin.

His eyes suddenly look so pleasant as they stare down at her. She likes him looking at her like this. She likes the way his arms have somehow curled themselves around her. He’s warm, unlike anything she’s ever felt before.

She feels their bodies pressing closer together. It’s different than it was at the brothel when they had danced. Here, there is quiet. It’s just her and him.

Rey wants to be closer to him still. Her body screams internally, craving the touch of his bare hands, his lips on her body, his hair brushing on her face.

His lips are so close. Her eyes are focused on every line and curve of them, growing closer and closer to her, until his shoulders suddenly tense.

Kylo leans away, his eyes growing wide for a moment, looking as if something had startled him.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, standing frozen, his arms still circled around hers, his hands touching against her sides. “I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t…”

“It’s alright,” she smiles, though her heart sinks a bit.

She turns away from him, his hands falling away from her body as she walks further into the room, her eyes staring at the ground, lit dimly by the moonlight coming in from the open windows.

Her heart is fluttering. Her head feels as if her thoughts are racing faster than she can even comprehend them.

“You can stay,” she speaks once she hears the sound of his footsteps backing away towards the doorway.

She may have never felt this sensation before, but she knows what it is. And she can’t fathom how she could fall for someone like this. Someone she knows has darkness in their past. Someone who is the furthest thing from the courageous knight in shining armor she has always imagined for herself.

Her hands reach up to undo her tunic, pulling the fabric loose. She turns her head back again, seeing Kylo’s head turned away, his body moving as if he were preparing to walk away again.

“Kylo,” she speaks softly to him, enjoying the way his name unravels from her tongue. She makes sure her eyes are locked on his before she repeats, “You can stay.”

She sees the heat in his face, but watches his eyes roam over her before she turns back around, her blood racing as she continues removing her tunic.

She steps out of her boots next, moving slowly, her hands reaching to undo her belt and then her trousers.

A smile spreads over her lips as she stands still for just a moment, her skin bare apart from her undergarments. Her skin feels hot, aching to be touched, but she stays turned towards the wall as she neatly places her discarded clothes on the small bed she sleeps on before reaching for the small shelf beside the window for a fresh tunic and trousers.

Rey only turns back around to face Kylo after she has finished redressing.

His eyes look hungry, but slightly frightened, his hands gripped into fists, looking as if he is afraid of himself.

She moves over towards him, her heart sinking a bit in guilt.

“Why do you always look so scared of me?” she asks desperately, watching him tense up again as she draws near. She doesn’t want him to feel embarrassed. She wants him to know she feels something for him too.

“Why are you never scared around me?” he counters, his eyes looking into hers somberly.

She freezes, gazing back up at him.

“You’re a much kinder person than you make yourself out to be,” she informs him. “Kylo…”

He draws away from her again when she reaches her hand towards his face, but it doesn’t stop her. Her palms rests against the side of his cheek, and all she feels is warmth. Flesh and blood, just like any other human.

“I helped you that day on the square because I saw who you were,” she tells him, her eyes gazing unblinkingly into his, desperate for him to listen to her. “I knew. I could tell even before I read your palm. Something is convincing you that there is such evil inside of you, but… I think there is much good in you as well.”

He doesn’t look away from her now. He doesn’t look startled by her touch. In fact, his eyes begin to look… softer. Wondrous.

Her hand slides down from his face, touching along the heavy black clothing he’s always shrouded in, before her fingers circle around his hand.

“Maybe we could just… lie together?” she proposes.

He accepts the offer. This time, there isn’t a single doubt that seems to hold him back as she leads him over to the bed. He even puts his arm around her after a while of them laying there, side by side, and he holds her close to him as they talk.

They talk for hours. Kylo doesn’t think he’s talked so much in his life. It feels as if days pass. He almost hopes that is true. That he and Rey have fallen into some sort of strange other world. Where it’s just them. Where they don’t have to answer to anyone, and they don’t have to worry about the guards surrounding them outside or the evils inside the very walls they are living in.

They talk about whatever comes to mind. Rey talks about what she loved about living in Jakku. He talks about how he’s longed to leave Exegol as long as he can remember, but he’s never known why he never ran away.

She tells him about all of the travelers who would pass through her village. How she loved hearing their stories, where they came from, where they were going. He tells her about all of the ships that he would watch from the bell tower as they whisked a hundred men out to sea, to all corners of the world, places he could only dream about seeing.

It feels so good to talk to someone. Especially her. It turns out, she has so much more in common with him than he ever imagined.

He doesn’t even notice how calm he’s become, how comfortable he is holding her so close to them as they both lie on her bed. Not until the next question she asks brings him crashing back down to reality.

“Have you ever been… in love?”

Her body feels small beside him. She fits perfectly into his arms. As if she were made especially for him.

“I don’t think so,” he answers awkwardly. “I mean… not like…”

“Not like this,” she finishes for him. He says nothing else. He doesn’t have to, he supposes.

“I’ve never been in love,” she tells him. “I always tried to imagine though. What it would feel like. And I always thought… well, when I was a girl I would always imagine that falling in love would mean you would have to get married immediately.”

Married?

His heart jumps in his chest. He remembers the bells up in the tower above them that ring whenever a woman in a decorative gown and a man in fine robes would hold hands and share a passionate kiss at the altar.

“Have you ever thought about that?” she asks, her eyes still staring up at the grey arch of the ceiling, where he has been gazing as well. “Getting married, I mean?”

His heart is now stopped completely in his chest. The quiet in the room seems so much louder than before. He can’t even hear their breathing.

“I’ve thought about it,” he admits, his voice sounding loud and resounding against the silence. “But I’ve never been able to imagine it for myself until…”

“Until when?”

Should he tell her? She must already know…

“Until I saw you dance for the first time in Jakku.”

He’s terrified of telling her. Of saying it out loud while they’re like this.

But she doesn’t pull away from him. She doesn’t seem horrified by his words or repulsed at the idea of how strong his feelings have been all this time.

Could it be possible that… has she been falling for him too?

They’re quiet for a little while. Kylo keeps waiting for himself to feel the weight of everything that has happened this very long night, waiting for exhaustion to finally take him to unconsciousness. But neither of them sleep.

It feels like even more hours pass before she speaks again.

She sits up suddenly, as if she has decided upon something. He moves to sit up as well, moving close to the wall on the other side of the bed as he looks down at her.

“I have to go back,” she says, her voice sounding clear and determined.

“Go back?”

“I have to see Finn,” she explains. “Tell him where I’ve been, so that he knows I’m alright.” Her head turns to look at him, her eyes full of light and sincerity. “And then I will come back to you.”

Kylo almost feels as if he had been hit over the head. Had he not been sitting down, he may have stumbled back a bit in a daze.

“You… you’re staying?” he asks, hearing his voice sound completely out of breath.

She smiles, looking a bit surprised at herself.

“I’ve found that I don’t mind it here very much at all,” she confesses. “And it wouldn’t be bad at all so long as you’re here to keep me company. At least until we can find a way to steal away on one of those ships you were speaking of.”

She says it jokingly, but he sees the conviction in her eyes. The excitement. A promise that no one has ever given him before. A promise that she isn’t fooling him. That she somehow, despite all reason, cares for him. Him…

“I should go tonight,” she continues, rising up from the bed and hovering over towards the window to glance out at the darkened city that will begin to be touched by the light of dawn within the hour. “While the guards are less watchful. I can be back before sunrise.”

He’s hesitant suddenly, his body moving automatically to push himself off from the bed and start towards her.

“Tonight?” he repeats doubtfully.

She turns back towards him, moving to hold her hands reassuringly against his arms. The movement is so natural, as if they have known each other all their lives.

“I just need to talk to him again,” she promises. “He deserves to know where I’ve been, and everything that’s happened.”

“But I-”

“I know you said they would figure out where I am, but Finn needs to hear it from me. He brought me here, he risked so much to make sure I was alright. And… he’s my friend. My first one, come to think of it.”

Kylo wants to continue to argue, but he can’t. How could he know of such feelings?

Rey’s warm little hands slide down his arms to grab his own gloved hands as she looks up at him with her usual buoyant stare.

“I promise I’ll stay here with you,” she tells him as his fingers curl around her hands. “I want to. But I need to do this first. Just trust me.”

Don’t let her go.

That voice is back. Just as doubtful and infuriating as ever.

She’s lying to you… she won’t come back…

But why is she acting this way? Why does she seem so excited, so eager to want to stay with him after they’ve just discussed…

Will she want to marry him when she returns? Kylo knows the thought is preposterous. But he thought the same thing of the idea of her falling in love with him, and… had she not just told him that she has?

“You’ll be back by sunrise?”

“If I can,” she nods, grinning at his continued hesitation. “I’ll come up the north side of the bell tower, right when the guards are switching posts. You can meet me on that balcony where we…”

“Where we danced,” he finishes for her, feeling his own mouth begin to break into a smile as his heart begins to beat faster and faster.

She smiles back before suddenly leaning forward towards him, raising herself up onto her toes as she tilts her head so that her lips are able to press softly against his cheek.

“Thank you,” she tells him after she’s leaned back, and before he can comprehend what had just happened, she runs off, out of the room and down the corridor, back toward the balcony they had just come in from.

His hand raises toward the side of his face, his gloved fingers touching against the spot where her lips had been just seconds ago.

He turns his head quickly to where she had run off, forcing himself out of the daze that wants to take him over as he feels his blood run hotly through every inch of his body. But he can only catch the brief sight of her form running up towards the balcony, the sound of her footsteps thumping against the wooden floor of the tower fading the moment he turns to look after her.

You fool. You’ll never see her again.

* * *

Rey inhales deeply once she is out on the large veranda, feeling the night air send a refreshing chill through her. Her eyes close as she smiles giddily, a tingling sensation going through her chest that almost makes her wonder if she has become hysterical.

She’s never felt so happy. So excited, without knowing exactly why.

It had all happened so suddenly, and yet somehow, it doesn’t feel sudden at all. It feels as if she has been here for years. With him. Just the two of them, somehow creating a world all their own in this beautiful place. And he had stolen a bit of her heart each day. Every time he would come in and bring her food or more clothes or an extra blanket. Every moment they spent up on the roof, looking at the stars.

She shakes her head, opening her eyes and looking down beyond the railing of the balcony.

She must get her head back down from this strange realm it keeps wandering into. Half of the reason she wants to get away and see Finn tonight is so that she can try and make some sense out of all these strange new emotions that have come crashing down upon her.

Speaking with Finn will help. Things feel… normal with him. Grounded. Up here, she can hardly tell what’s real or what she’s making up in her head.

She tries to keep this in mind as she begins scaling down the side of the tower. She tries to be cautious and slow, keeping a sharp eye and ear out for any movement nearby. But the feeling of Kylo’s body pressed against hers keeps interrupting her concentration. The thought of his eyes gazing over her exposed body continues to distract her focus.

She nearly loses her footing twice. She’s never done that before in her life. Perhaps that should have been a sign. A sign to turn back and stay right where she has been the past few days. With Kylo, where she has been safe and happy and taken care of.

But now her feet have touched against the cobblestone of the street. And they have not rested against the jagged surface for more than a moment before the rough voice of a man calls out and there are two guards that have taken her violently by the arms, holding her back as several other guards and a church official come out from a simple hiding spot she should have been smart enough to be looking out for.

“Is this the one?” one of the guards asks, turning back toward the man in the refined church robes as Rey grits her teeth and yanks desperately against the steel grip of the men holding her.

One of them reaches up to grab a handful of her loose hanging hair, pulling it so sharply, she hears some of it rip from her scalp as he wrenches her head back.

“That’s her,” the familiar looking church official speaks with a determined nod. “I told you, she’s been hiding up in the bell tower all week.”

The guard who had asked nods in affirmation and turns to stand before her now as she feels deathly cold chains lock tightly around her wrists.

“Scavenger,” the guard commands in a voice that sends a sharp jolt through her heart, “you are to be taken to the Palace of Justice to await trial for the murder of Captain Pryde. Take her away!”

Chapter Text

At the very least, the trial had begun immediately at dawn the next day, so Rey had really only had to wait in her cell for a few torturous hours. The court seemed eager to get her case out of the way.

She feels delirious sitting here now on the small wooden stool set before the panel of cloaked men, her hands still chained behind her back as she forces her body to remain upright. Her eyes are swollen from crying, the tears feeling permanently plastered onto her face. Her throat feels raw from the hours it feels she’s been yelling out the same words over and over, her pleas falling on deaf ears. She may as well not be saying anything.

The judge and his court are before her, looking as if they are sitting upon a glorious mountain compared to where she sits in front of them. Beside her, filling the remaining benches in the courtroom are a whole matter of men draped in fine robes, all watching her through narrow, slitted eyes, as if expecting her to begin speaking in devilish tongues at any moment, cursing them all.

Closest to the judge and his colleagues, Rey can see the red-haired church official that had aided in her arrest.

He never looks at her. He keeps his eyes on the judge and the court, but never once on her. Still, her mind is trying to place him, positive she has seen him before. Perhaps he had been one of the men who had come to Jakku. But she hardly can remember the specifics of those men. They had all looked the same to her.

“Listen here, scavenger!” one of the men beside the judge hollars sharply at her, making her startle, lifting her head back up to look at him. “I say, do you recognize this weapon?!”

Rey’s eyes squint at the gleaming object the man holds up, hearing a collective gasp and murmur from the crowd behind her filling up the rest of the courtroom. A crowd that had apparently been very interested in seeing the trial of the Jakku girl who has been accused of murder.

“It’s a dagger,” she answers, her voice sounding pathetic even to her own ears.

“Indeed,” the man continues in his booming voice, still holding up the blood stained object as he glares down at her. “Yours, is it not? The one you used to murder the Captain.”

“I don’t have any dagger,” she protests, her head shaking desperately. “I haven’t any weapons with me, I brought none here into Exegol, nor into the church. I recognize the weapon, many people carry one, but I possess no such thing.”

“Is that so?” the man goes on, his tone not changing a bit. “Why then was a lock of your hair found strewn beside the blade at the scene of the crime? Ripped out while the poor man was trying to defend himself, was it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she denies once again, her eyes begging, pleading with the man to understand, to see her, to see that she could harm no one in that way. “I would never… I couldn’t kill someone.”

“You had every reason to, did you not?” another of the men at the panel roars out at her. “You ran to Notre Dame when he attempted to see you properly punished for your behavior on the streets. And now twelve gold pieces are missing from the treasury chamber where his body was found. You stole from the very sacred temple that offered you sanctuary, and you murdered the Captain when he found you attempting to desecrate the church with your thieving, demonic ways!”

The crowd behind her murmurs again as Rey feels the words stab into her heart. Words against her that she does not understand, words that could not be further from the truth.

“I never stole from anyone… I never left the bell tower-”

“You left to visit a whore house with your stolen money,” the man contradicts. “Several witnesses have confirmed it. Do you deny this?”

Her throat opens and closes as her mind struggles hopelessly to think of an excuse, some truth that they will believe.

“I… I left to…”

“Archdeacon,” the judge speaks loudly, ignoring her words, “do explain to the court what you witnessed of this fiendish girl last night.”

Rey raises her head that had fallen to her chest once more, to see that the red headed church official has risen from his place seated among the court.

His eyes stay planted on the ground as he moves, his hands behind him, hidden in the mass of his robes, until he turns his gaze up to face the rest of the room, though he still looks as if he is making an effort not to look at her.

“I had heard the commotion coming from the treasury chamber as I was on my way to my personal office,” he begins. His voice crawls throughout the room, and something about it makes a chill go down Rey’s spine, as if his words were ice that licked menacingly at the back of her neck. “Captain Pryde had come to meet with me that evening to discuss his… concerns with the scavenger girl running rampant about Notre Dame. I foolishly assured him he needn’t worry about any trouble, though I had my doubts as well.”

Who is this man? Does he know her? She doesn’t recall ever coming across him in the church…

“I heard crashing and gasps of distress, so I made my way to the chamber, only to find the dagger and the body of the Captain. And an open window that had previously been locked shut.”

The alleyway. That is where she remembers him from. He was there that night in the alleyway, the night Kylo had tried to drag her off. Kylo knew him.

“When I looked out the window, I witnessed the scavenger climbing down the wall and running off into the night. On quick instinct, I decided to follow her as she ran through the streets. I followed her to a whore house at the edge of the city.”

That much must be true. Unless this modest and chaste man of the church frequents the underground whore houses, there can be no way he knows the brothel is there. But if he followed her last night… he must have seen Kylo as well.

“She stayed for some time before returning back to the church, and by that time, one of the priests had found the body as well,” the man finishes to the sound of gasping and chattering people while the men in their places along the benches beside her nod their heads, as if in agreement. “That was when I notified the guards and they caught her within the next couple of hours when she tried slipping out of the church again.”

Why would he not mention Kylo at all? Why is he lying, telling half truths, all to make sure she is unquestioningly accused of this murder?

“You say you had your doubts about her from the beginning?” the judge questions, and the red haired man turns back to face him, his eyes now purposefully skimming right over where Rey is sitting.

“I did,” he replies, his voice sounding… quieter, almost. “She had been in the church for days. She did indeed reside mostly in the bell tower. Her presence devastated the sanctity of the church. She pranced about immodestly, spreading her black magic where she could, practicing witchcraft whenever she could, no doubt intent on destroying the house of God.”

It all overtakes her so suddenly, she almost falls backward from her uncomfortable seat. It is as if someone had smacked her upside the head in order to wake her up and see what is right in front of her.

It all makes sense. His clever lies, his refusal to look her in the eye, his shaky demeanor, the sweat gathering just at the side of his forehead…

“Scavenger,” the judge announces, as if the word were her given name, “the evidence weighs heavily against you. Do you confess to these horrendous crimes of stealing from the church, harnessing black magic in the presence of God, and murdering the Captain of the Guard?”

“It was you,” she says quietly, though her tone is much more steadied than it has been all this time. Her eyes stay trained on the red haired church official who is returning to his place at the panel. She catches his gloved hands twisting madly together, hidden just barely by the folds in his robes as his back is facing her.

“I say girl, do you confess?!” the judge demands, but her attention is fully trained on the archdeacon, who finally has turned his wide, unsure eyes to look directly into hers.

“It was him!” she exclaims finding her voice again, letting it come out strong and loud. “It was him! He murdered the Captain-”

“Enough of this!” the man who had been holding the knife proclaims as a mixture of shocked cries and doubtful laughs emanates from the gathering of people behind her. “Your honor, I suggest the witch be subjected to torture.”

“Why have you done this?!” she screams desperately to the man she has locked eyes with, feeling his awareness sting through her very being. How can no one else see?

“Very well,” the judge sighs, looking beyond bored with the entire matter. “The accused requires the aid of torture.”

Rey hardly hears the voices around her, nor feels the hands of the guards that come to drag her away. All she can do is keep her eyes helplessly tied along with the archdeacon’s as she begs silently for him to stop all of this, whatever this horrid plan is that he has for her.

But he does not move. He does not speak another word. He simply watches her go, dragged past the panel of judges towards the torture chamber, his jaw locked into a firm grimace and his eyes not leaving hers once until she is ripped away from the courtroom and suddenly shrouded in darkness.

The smell of blood and rotting overwhelms her the moment she is dragged into the pitch black corridor, as if that small little door leading down the dark corridor away from the courtroom led into Hell itself.

She is yanked down the steps and out of the hallway into a large cellar lit only by the dimmest of torches that cast a hot, ghostly glow over the horrifying display.

Rey feels her eyes want to close tightly as she is dragged past multiple racks, wheels, spiked chairs, pronged bridles, and a whole matter of nightmarish devices she has only ever heard about whispered in the most frightful of tones.

There is a man waiting for them as the guards drag her towards an empty chair, unchaining her hands from behind her back as they shove her down onto the hard wooden seat, only to begin locking her hands down at her sides, pulling the chains tight so that she can’t move them even an inch.

“I was hoping they’d send you down here, scavenger scum,” the man hovering near a table filled with sharpened devices grins at her, showing off a set of teeth as pointed as the torture devices surrounding them.

He is dirty and demented looking, as if he were a living incarnation of the tools resting in this very room. And every moment his eyes remain slathered over her, she feels as if she can already feel the deathly grip of the various horrors waiting to be used on her.

“The boot first,” one of the guards calls over to the man after they’ve finished chaining her to the chair.

“Ah, of course,” the man’s grin grows even more wide, like a predator delighted to see its prey caught squirming helplessly in an inescapable trap. He turns toward the table of devices. Rey jumps, as much she can anyway, when the harsh sound of metal scraping together suddenly rings out before the man turns back, a large, ugly looking object in his hands.

As he brings it closer towards her, she can see it is made completely of horribly rusty looking metal that has been made into a mock image of a boot. Only, judging by the bits of dried blood splattered about it, one can guess it is not meant for common footwear.

Rey’s heart beats madly as something within her suddenly jolts into action, making her fight madly in her restraints as the disgusting man kneels before her, placing the boot on the ground before reaching out to grab ahold of her leg.

“Please,” she begs, her throat swelling with terror as her breathing comes in gasps. “Please don’t do this…”

The man’s hot, repulsive hands close around the bare skin of her leg, pushing the fabric of her trousers out of the way as his hands trail down to stroke mockingly along her bare foot.

“Don’t say anything yet, my dear,” he speaks in a falsely gentle voice. “It is so much better when they don’t say anything at least until I can break a few bones.”

“Please, I didn’t do anything,” she begs, pulling her leg away uselessly as the man begins inserting her exposed foot into the daunting device.

She cringes as she feels her skin scrape against the unforgiving metal, and is even more horrified to feel two pointed spikes settle on either side of her foot after it has been set and locked into the instrument.

“Do you confess to the crimes you have been accused of?” one of the guards beside her demands as she continues to fight against the chains holding her down.

“I have done nothing!” she pleads, struggling futilely. “It wasn’t me, it was-”

Her words are cut off when a sharp gasp chokes through her throat as she feels the metal suddenly crush harshly around her foot following the sound of a horrible screech of metal. The spikes push prominently against the sides of her foot, indenting into her skin.

“Did you steal from the church?” the other guard questions.

“No!”

Another crank, and this time she screams. The spikes break through her skin, and she feels warmth begin to drip around her foot, while the metal crushes down more firmly, feeling as if a boulder has rolled onto her foot.

“Did you murder Captain Pryde? Does that dagger belong to you?”

“I’m innocent! It wasn’t me who-”

Her scream echoes hauntingly off the walls of the chamber as the metal cranks again, the spikes digging more firmly into her foot, snapping through her tendons.

“Are you a witch? Have you spoken with the devil? Have you practiced black magic within the walls of Notre Dame?”

Just confess… confess, and it will be over… just lie…

“I have done nothing,” she persists, pushing out the voice inside her head begging for the pain to end before it can grow worse. “I am innocent of crime.”

There is a pause where she expects pain, and she looks down at the man cranking the wheel on the boot, seeing him give an enraptured grin.

“Ah, pity,” he sighs, almost casually, as he stares down at her captured foot. “I did so enjoy watching you dance.”

The mechanism cranks again, and Rey feels a pain so sharp, she is sure she could pass out.

Her scream is even too horrid for her own mind to comprehend as a deafening crack shudders through her foot, and blood pools and seeps through every inch of the metal boot, the spikes brushing against her shattered bones.

Her head slams back against the chair as her eyes roll back in her head, her throat making an awful choking sound as tears drench down her face.

Their questions echo somewhere in the back of her mind and she knows she has to say something fast before they do it again.

“Nothing… I’ve done nothing… I have not harmed anyone…” she mutters over and over. Has she? Has she done something to deserve this? How else could the world suddenly turn against her so?

She doesn’t scream this time when the wheel cranks and another snap resounds through her foot and the spikes dig in deeper. Her head throws itself forward as she rocks herself against the chair, but the chains no longer even make a noise against her fighting. Her strength has left her.

“I did it,” she mumbles, her head clouded with only the thought of making this end. Anything is better than this. “Whatever it is… I did it… please-”

The boot is unlocked and yanked off, making her consciousness waver. She hears the distant noise of the chains unlocking and feels herself moving up off the chair. It is only when her weight stumbles upon her mutilated foot that she is granted a brief mercy of falling into a peaceful oblivion.

Hux had stepped away from the courtroom after she had been dragged away deep into the depraved hell reserved for the worst of criminals who refuse to comply with the law. No one took much notice, in fact many people had stood to step outside for a moment or stretch their legs while the torture commenced in the next chamber over. It never takes long, but people never like sitting still.

He had made sure no one was looking his way when he slipped down the secret corridor just outside the torture chamber, a place he knows very well, where one can listen to the screams and pleas of the criminals just beyond the wall.

It is her screams that he hears echoing softly from the deep chamber now. Sounding as elegant and melodious as every other sound that comes from her throat. Only it is now laced with terror and misery. Choked sobs and panicked crying and pleading bite at Hux’s consciousness as he leans up against the stone wall.

He should be enjoying this. The witch is getting what she has deserved since the beginning. What every one of her kind deserves.

But it is as if he is convincing himself over and over with a weak argument, when there is something deep in his soul that keeps reminding him that he is the one who has done this to her. She is suffering for something his own hands committed. And she deserves none of it.

He doesn’t let thoughts like this linger for long. Even as he feels his chest contort in pain with each of her screams. Even when all he wants to do is run down to her to stop those disgusting fiends from hurting her another moment, to take her up in his arms and bring her to safety, somewhere where he can promise her no one will ever harm her again.

But he can’t. He must be patient. There is no turning back from this plan now. She must suffer, as she has made him suffer, before he can offer her salvation.

For now, all he can do is clutch his hands to his heart, close his eyes, and beg God for strength as he prays the scavenger will hurry along and confess before he has to hear her unbearable cries any longer.

Rey returns to consciousness to the feeling of deathly cold water being thrown at her face.

She is dragged back up the stairs, out of the corridor and through the door back into the courtroom.

The light is harsh and makes her curl into herself as she is dragged limping across the room, leaving a trail of blood as she goes, until she is thrown back down onto the wooden stool, her arms wrenched back and chained behind her again.

She is unable to lift her head at all this time, and doesn’t attempt to. There is nothing she needs to see anyhow.

“Rey of Jakku,” the judge announce, finally using her name, “you have confessed to numerous horrendous crimes including thievery, witchcraft, and murder. You will be hanged in the square before the eyes of God at sunset tomorrow.”

* * *

The hours drag into one seamless, unending day. The sun hardly even reaches through the tiny barred window of the cell. Just a sad, greyish light that trickles in, as if in an afterthought, only allowing Rey a sliver of unwarm illumination in the dark, lonely room.

She spends the day attempting to nurse her mangled foot. They had at least been decent enough to wrap it in order to stop the bleeding and to force the bones back into place so that she may limp her way to the gallows tomorrow evening. But the ache remains, pulsing through every inch of the appendage. It has turned a dark, sickly purple and green color, and she sees her ankle is still horribly misshapen despite the attempts to nudge the bones back into the general area where they belong.

She’ll never dance again with this foot. At least not the same. The thought barked into her mind, as if to drive the pain of her circumstances even further into her heart, but she realizes that tomorrow will be the last day of her life, so it really matters not if she is able to dance.

She waits now, leaning against the dirtied wall of the cell, hearing the casual sound of footsteps pattering and wheels of carts cranking along on the street somewhere above her.

Everything had been so beautiful when she’d first arrived here. When she danced in the rain, when she had run all throughout the wondrous city, seeing all these new, strangely dressed people go about their lives. Jakku, in that moment, had been so meager, so insignificant compared to everything that was happening to her in that moment.

Now, her home is painted in a dreamy golden light. A beautiful, comforting memory that makes her soul yearn to be at home, amid familiar things, familiar people, familiar dangers. She curses her foolishness of running off with Finn, ignoring the uncertainties and the possibilities of anything going wrong. If she had stayed where she was, in a place she knew, she would still be as carefree and happy and safe as she had been.

But she knows that was not meant to be.

Even if it had not been Finn, if it had not been Exegol, she would have found some other way to run off into the world, desperate to see everything surrounding her desert home that she had yet to see. And through it all, perhaps she would end up right here in Exegol anyway. Perhaps this is what is meant to happen. This is the unavoidable end to her story.

She does not want to lose what’s left of her mind and her happiness sitting here in this miserable solitude, so Rey instead chooses to focus her mind on all the good that this journey has brought her.

She had been able to see a larger world, to see things for how they really are, not simply covered by her romanticized fascination. She made friends whom she aided in their fight for a noble cause. She experienced the beauty of Notre Dame and the comfort that faith can provide.

She had fallen in love.

All of these things must mean something. She has at least left a small mark on the world, has she not?

She wonders, glancing up toward the small, barred window looking out to the grey sky, if one must be within the church and kneeling before the Virgin Mary in order to speak to her. She really could use the great relief it had brought her to be able to speak her worries to someone who might be listening.

Rey decides, since there is not much else to lose now, she can at least think her worries in her mind, and hope somehow that something out there can hear them.

So she thinks of how sorry she is that she has seemed to have been caught up in all of this trouble. She thinks of her hopes that Finn is safe, and that the Resistance succeeds in its mission to bring justice and freedom from the evil men controlling the church.

She thinks of Kylo. Even though just picturing his face, his beautiful big dark eyes, is almost too much for her to bear. She prays he will come looking for her, even though she knows she should be hoping that he stays out of this mess as well. She still remembers that day on the square when he had looked half beaten to death all on account of her.

She knows now that he had been trying to take her to the church that night. He had cared for her all this time, ever since Jakku. The guards had shown up right when he had been dragging her away that night… and so had that man. The red headed man. The archdeacon who has now framed her for murder.

Had Kylo known they were going to try to harm her? Was he trying to get her to the church, to sanctuary, because he knew of something that was meant to happen that night?

That must have been why he always seemed so reluctant to let her step one foot outside of the church. She had thought it was just because of the guards, but… perhaps he knew something more.

This thought sends a surprising wave of comfort through her, thinking that perhaps he will come to her now that she has been missing all day. Surely he will know something is wrong. He’s smart. He’s good at hiding himself from others. He could find a way to get her out of here…

She almost laughs to herself when she recalls his odd strength, swinging himself all around that bell tower, up the walls and along the statues to get wherever he had wanted to go. Surely he could find some way to break the bars of this cell.

She sighs, shaking her head as her eyes fall closed, her throat swelling, but she has cried all the tears she can.

It’s impractical to think. Though she doesn’t quite know where to begin when coming to terms with one’s death, she figures hoping for someone to gallantly ride in on a white horse is not a productive way to start.

Although, she can’t help but continue gazing up at the window, thinking that even just one more glance at him, one more look at his shy smile and his hopeful eyes would be what she would choose to look at last before her life ends.

Kylo spends hours on the veranda. He paces back and forth, waiting for the sun to rise. The sky turns purple and still she doesn’t come. The sun begins to peek out over the sky, lighting the world with the dim, foggy light of the morning, but she is not here. People begin to come out of their homes, the streets filling almost in an instant with everyone getting ready for the day, opening their windows, rushing their carts here and there.

She is nowhere among them.

Her absence is like a demented confirmation. The jabbing voice inside his head is celebrating with glee, boasting that it had been right all along.

Still, he wanders all along the bell tower, his heart aching in fear. At least he tells himself it is fear. Fear that something had happened, that the guards had caught her, that she is going to be brought out to the square and hanged before his very eyes any minute now.

But the guards are still posted as they have been at every entrance of the church. And the day seems to be going along as always. People aren’t gathering together around the gallows for an execution. Everything is as it always is.

In truth, it is sorrow that pains his heart. And though that is selfish and well deserved, he can’t help it.

He’s known all this time. He had kept reminding himself every moment that one day, she would not be here with him. She would go on to live her life, too eager and spirited to be kept behind the stone walls of a church or any other edifice. And sure enough, the moment he had let himself hope, the moment he had relished that she felt everything for him that he felt for her, she is beyond his grasp once more.

In a way, he’s almost relieved. He couldn’t bear it if he were keeping her from anything she desires. Obviously, he had been.

But he believes her. Even though it is perhaps foolish to, he believes what she had told him last night. That she had fallen for him. If he simply was too blinded by passion or all of the confusion last night, he doesn’t want to know. All he knows, even now as he sits on the roof, his eyes still madly searching every corner of the streets below him, is that the look in her eyes was real.

She does care for him. At least in some way. But not enough.

Maybe, he thinks, she has run off with Finn. Maybe she was able to think more clearly when she reunited with him. Maybe he wooed her with much more elegant words than Kylo could ever use. And an offer much grander than Kylo could ever give.

Perhaps they’ve left. Together. That would be best, wouldn’t it?

It’s at least a better thought than wondering if she really is somewhere down there, lost to the evils that have been hunting her in this awful place, with no hope for her soul to ever rest peacefully.

Chapter Text

Hux does not rest all throughout the day, but he does not get an inkling of work done.

Even now that his goal has been accomplished and his job finished, he wonders… he wonders if what he has done was the right choice.

Everything had gone more perfectly than he could have even imagined. The soldiers and the whores in the brothel he had bribed served their purpose flawlessly. The knife, along with the lock of hair he had presented to the judge that the guards had ripped from the girl’s head went by without even a question. Even when she had pieced it together herself, yelled it in front of the court that he was to blame, no one had hardly batted an eye.

It feels as if it almost had gone… too perfectly.

Pacing madly within his office turns to pacing madly about the church. No one dares question him as he mutters aimlessly to himself, deep within his prayers, begging God to show him a sign that what he has done is what had to be done, what was necessary.

Evil had to be done in order to fight the evil that lives within her. Now… now that it is done, he can save her. He can begin to show her the wickedness in her heart, the shame in her way of life.

His eyes feel sunken in. His face is hollow. His limbs shake when he tries to stand still. He had hardly made it through the trial, feeling his very soul split in two when Rey’s fiery eyes had seared into his.

He can not recall the last time he ate or slept. He can not remember a time when this image of a slender, brown haired woman dancing seductively before him, her hips goading him and her arms beckoning to him, was not imprinted permanently in his head any time he closed his eyes.

He kneels before the holy shrine, finding his mind in conversation with himself rather than with God.

Is it a spell that continues to pull him towards this temptress? That forces his hand towards the flame over and over again? That drives his health and his sanity away further and further every moment?

Or… is it him?

Is he simply too afraid to admit… his love?

Love… oh, God. The word strikes more fear through him than even the cursed unholiness that emanates from the scavenger girl that has stolen his heart.

Love… love is reserved for God. For the prophet. For Notre Dame. For things that are pure and sanctified. To equate love with a scavenger devil… it is most sinful.

And yet he can not help but feel that is what pulls at his heart. That is what drives him mad, compels him to leave behind all he has learned and strived for in order to simply have her.

Him. The archdeacon of Notre Dame. Utterly destroyed for love of a girl. His weakness is revealed in a most prominent light. His will has crumbled under the allure of a tantalizing witch whose hand had brushed along his chest the first time he saw her dance like a sparkle of devilish fire in the desert sun. Is there no greater betrayal to this place that has given him everything?

He wants to abolish his plan. He wants so desperately to allow things to continue on, just as they should. He begs God for the strength to remain in the church all through today, all through the night, and all through the next day until the scavenger can finally be taken from this Earth, relieving his suffering. But God does not answer him.

It is dark when he finally gives in, once again abandoning his strength. His mind is made as he shrouds himself in an unidentifiable heavy cloak and makes his way through the night, towards the Palace of Justice. To where she waits alone in her cell.

The footsteps rattling through the empty corridor wake Rey out of her light sleep. It had been more like a trance as she felt only numb, in a mock display of sleep, still aware of the dreary setting that enclosed her.

She at first thinks perhaps the footsteps belong to a guard assigned to survey the perimeter, making sure all the prisoners are asleep. The thought almost makes her laugh in dark amusement, wondering what they think a handful of condemned prisoners are going to be up to at this hour that would need close supervision.

But the figure comes to a stop at the boarded door closing her in her cell. The torchlight from the corridor becomes blocked off as something stands before the small window in the wooden door.

She becomes frozen in her place, shrugged up against the stone wall as she hears the sound of something scraping, picking at the lock. Her heart stops in her chest as her blood runs cold, her mind frantically wondering if, in her haze, she has failed to notice that two days have passed and it is time for them to bring her out to her execution.

But that can’t be. The sun has set, it is dark out. Everyone has gone home, everything has closed down for the night.

The lock clicks, and the door swings open, but Rey still can not move. She is unable to make out who the figure is standing in the doorway and they make no immediate movement toward her either.

It isn’t a guard. It’s not an executioner. But still, there is a feeling in the pit of her stomach… a feeling that makes her want to reel back in terror at this unknown phantom who has come into her lonely cell.

“Don’t be afraid,” a surprisingly soft voice speaks out into the darkness. “I’ve not come to harm you.”

The figure, a man by the sound of his voice, begins moving into the cell, pushing the door closed behind him as he does.

Rey suddenly feels small and defenseless as she sits on the dirt covered floor, staring up at the approaching man who finally steps far enough into the cell that the moonlight from the barred window streaks across his face.

A gasp stays caught in her throat as she catches sight of the familiar narrowed eyes and glinting red hair.

“I can help you,” he says to her, his tone remaining quiet and gentle, matching a funny look in his eyes that she has never seen on his face before. She recalls his tone being firm and undaunted, his face being a stone mask of importance. He looks different now.

“You,” she hisses, feeling a stream of stifled anger brewing deep in her core.

“Just listen to me,” he talks desperately, moving closer to her still, making her skin crawl as she begins pulling herself away, her rage-filled eyes still upon him.

She’s never felt anything so violent towards someone before in her life. But in this moment, as she looks upon this man, this man who looks stood up like a false promise of comfort and hope, she feels nothing but hatred course through her.

“I can get you out of here,” he tells her, still taking quick, unbalanced steps toward her.

“You’re the reason I’m in here,” she growls, surprised at the sound of fury in her throat. “You put me in here. You lied to the court. They tortured me and now they’re going to kill me.”

“I had to!” he insists, his voice cutting sharp and quick, as if the thought of it struck something in him. “I had to make you see…”

He kneels suddenly in front of her, taking ahold of her arms and pulling her back towards him before she can scramble away.

“I was never going to let them hurt you,” he tells her as she tries pushing away from him, but with the shape she has been put in, she’s not much fit to fight anyone off. “I only had to make you understand, I had to find a way…”

She slows her movement, her eyes looking him over in confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

His hands grip painfully on her arms, his fingers feeling as if they are grinding into her bones. But his eyes penetrate much deeper, looking as if they were attempting to gaze into her very soul.

“I can free you,” he tells her, his voice a distressed whisper. “I can take you away from here tonight.”

“Take me where, what do you mean?”

“Back to the church. You will stay there. With me. And I’ll not let another man harm you again.”

“I was in the church,” she argues, pushing down the painful choking that wants to close around her throat, “I was safe there, and you had me arrested.”

“It had to be done!” he exclaims again, shaking her roughly, as if trying to rid her of her accusations. “Don’t you see, you witch?! You know what it is you’ve done to me, you know what you’ve forced from me!”

Rey says nothing, her anger quickly simmering away, replaced by a growing horror that makes a death-like chill crawl down her spine.

“I will save you from your deserved fate,” he promises her, his hands still clinging to her, as if he were terrified she is going to vanish. “If you come with me. But then you must obey every command I give you. Only then can I also save your soul from the sinful path it has found.”

She is revolted by his words, sensing their disgusting implication.

“You’re insane,” she breathes, her eyes filled with revolution and desperate confusion. “I’ve done nothing to you, why do you wish to put me through such torment?”

“You know why,” he answers without hesitation, though Rey still struggles in bewilderment.

“I don’t know you,” she insists, feeling tears well into her eyes, though she tries to fight them off. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve your hatred, but I-”

“My hatred?” he almost seems to chuckle at the statement, his eyes flickering madly in the sliver of moonlight pouring in from above them. “All you’ve done is bewitch me with your beauty until my soul has fallen under your spell. You danced before me, telling me everything you wanted from me. Your curse has plagued my mind for weeks. I’ve seen the darkest parts of myself in trying to fight you off. And now, my lovely witch, I offer you what you want. My soul. In exchange for your submission to me, so that I may save the both of us from the fire.”

She wants to sob. She wants to scream. She wants to strike him. What he is speaking of, she has no inkling of. Something in his mind is making him say these awful things, and she does not know what it is. He is transfixed on her, and she does not know why. She doesn’t even know his name.

Her instincts forcing her into sudden action, she grabs him by the shoulders with all the strength she has and pushes him away, desperate to get his hands off her arms.

He claws at her, trying to keep ahold of her, but she grabs his hands in hers before he can latch on again, trying to push him back again.

Something cold and dark and isolating shrieks through her however the moment her palms brush against his. Her body tenses and her mouth opens in shock and terror at the horrid feeling, and she collapses back as he rises back up, shaking her off.

Rey breathes heavily, the ghostly feeling still wavering through her even now that their contact has ceased.

The cold radiating from him had felt like ice that had leapt straight from his hands to pierce at her heart.

“Y-you…” she gasps, still desperately trying to push the feeling away. “You’re a monster…”

He gazes down at her now with something maddening in his eyes. Something that makes them alight like fire. The gentle, shuddering demeanor has disappeared in an instant, as if it was never there.

“What have you done?” she asks, more to herself than to him. The hands that she had touched have done terrible things… unspeakable things.

Rey hurries to stand up, but stumbles painfully on her injured foot, and the shock of the sensation still has her rattled.

“I know what it is you’re after,” she hears him speak as she limps back to the corner of the cell while he moves forward, closer and closer until there is no way around him. “You’ve driven me mad with waiting.”

He moves forward to grab her by the throat, pulling her body easily onto his, his lips crushing against hers.

His mouth moves as if he has been starving for days, his tongue moving to taste every inch of her he can. She twists and pulls from his grasp, but his arms move to lock around her, keeping her pressed firmly against his body.

Her palm comes up towards his face, shoving firmly against the side of his head, pushing him off of her mouth and giving her room to shove her hands against his chest, catching him off balance enough to send him stumbling back while she quickly takes the opportunity to run out of the corner she had trapped herself in.

“You’re nothing but a deceiver!” she shouts to him as he regains his balance and turns to face her with outraged eyes. “You call me a devil and a witch, but it is you that plays games. You dress the part of a priest, yet you have no faith or devotion. Your heart is empty and cold.”

She doesn’t know for a moment what he will do to her and she does not care. She wants him to know she has seen him for what he is, she sees his soul that he thinks was so righteous before being infected by her.

And she isn’t afraid. She knows no matter how much she screams or begs, no one will come to save her down here. But she is not afraid of the trickster that stands before her now. All she sees is a fool whose facade does not convince her. And she wants him to know it.

He does nothing for a moment. Just gazes at her, a whole matter of emotions going through his eyes. The sight almost makes Rey feel a bit of pity for the man.

His eyes suddenly set into the hard, immovable formation she’d seen them in before in the courtroom, his posture straightening as he jerks his robes straight. But when he speaks, his voice gives away the unnerving emotions underneath.

“Then you’ll hang tomorrow at sunset,” he informs her before turning sharply towards the door, sweeping back across the cell. “And after you’re dead my dear, your body will be dragged through the streets and torn to shreds for all to see.”

Those are the last words Rey hears, the last words that hang definitively in the air after the door slams shut and locks behind the disheveled man as he storms back to wherever he had come from.

Chapter Text

Kylo knows something is wrong the moment he sees the cloaked figure rushing in through the side entrance of the church.

He knew something was wrong long before now. He didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want to go to Hux for help as he would have done years before whenever he was unsure of something. But not because he was afraid of what Hux would think of him or that he would be brought before the prophet once again for penance.

He’s afraid of what he already knows.

He follows the cloaked figure, watching as he goes down an empty corridor, ripping the disguise away to reveal what Kylo already knew was underneath.

He runs down the stairwell, hearing Hux’s uneven footsteps echoing off the stone walls. A couple of the priests are lighting the candelabras in the cathedral, but otherwise, the church feels as it does when it is at its emptiest. Hollow.

Kylo runs down the corridor toward the figure of a man storming down towards the west hallway, towards his private quarters.

“Hux!” Kylo calls out, only remembering he forgot to put his mask back on when he hears his voice echo off the towering walls of the cathedral.

Hux stops in his tracks.

Kylo has never seen him look like this. He seems… rattled. He has never seen anything rattle Hux before. His eyes are bloodshot when he turns to face him, his hair looks as if he has torn his hands through it, his robes are disheveled.

“What’s wrong?” he asks automatically, stopping a few feet away after Hux turns to face him.

The man takes a ragged breath, looking as if he’s suppressing a smirk as he looks Kylo over.

He realizes he probably isn’t in a much better state than Hux is by now.

“The scavenger girl,” Hux begins, running his hand over his face, breathing a rather hysterical sounding chuckle.

Kylo’s heart jumps at the words and he is suddenly speaking without thinking.

“Where is she? Is she alright?”

He almost chokes on the words, wanting to stop them from coming out of his mouth but also not able to ask fast enough.

Hux blinks, and suddenly his face is back to normal, how it always looks. Restrained. Unemotional.

“She’s been arrested,” he tells him calmly, his hands going to smooth out his uniform and robes, looking slightly irritated that someone is seeing him in such a state. “The Palace of Justice has accused her of murder.”

Kylo feels a wave of things go through his mind. He isn’t sure he understands at first. It’s so absurd, his mind can’t make sense of it.

“I… that isn’t… that’s not possible…”

“The trial didn’t last long,” Hux continues, keeping his eyes down on his hands as he folds back the cuffs of his uniform. “There was overwhelming evidence, and she confess-”

“Who are they saying she… murdered?” Kylo demands, his mouth stumbling on the awful word that he knows should have no single association with the Rey he knows.

“Captain Pryde,” Hux answers, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Quite a job for a little minx like her, don’t you-”

“It isn’t true,” Kylo denies, feeling a shaking rage begin to tremor all through his body.

“What did you-”

“It isn’t true!” he shouts, his voice hollering violently off the walls, making him aware of his lack of self control again. “I’m… I’m sorry, but… she couldn’t-”

“I understand it’s difficult for someone like you to understand,” Hux tells him, shaking his head. “She must seem like a sort of deity to you. But her appearance is a facade. There is nothing but a murderous wench underneath. She tricks the hearts of weak, foolish men like yourself. She has preyed upon you. She gained your trust that day she tried to ease you out of your punishment that you know you deserved. But it was all to worm her way into this sacred place of God so that she could-”

“She didn’t kill anyone,” Kylo forces himself to continue to speak out, knowing he can not let Hux convince him he is wrong this time. “I know, I was with her the entire time she was here. She never left the bell tower.”

There is silence between them after the words are spoken out loud. Kylo doesn’t know what to expect. It’s a horrible feeling that is at the pit of his stomach. The same feeling he had the night he chose to go out and try to bring Rey to the church to hide her when he knew Hux wanted her, for whatever reason.

He doesn’t know what drives Hux to this frightening, unknown edge when it comes to Rey. But despite his years at this church, despite all Hux has done for him, he knows Rey deserves to be safe and unharmed by anyone.

But the look on Hux’s face now… the coldness of his eyes, the slight curl of his lips… he looks enraged. But not surprised.

“So it’s true,” he speaks, his voice low, but dangerous, a sound Kylo has only heard on the rarest of occasions. “You’ve fallen under her seductive little spell. You’ve let your mind become warped and twisted, and for what?”

Kylo doesn’t answer. His eyes are wide and confused, unsure of what to say.

“All so she perhaps might allow you to have her?” he asks, moving closer as he glares unblinkingly into Kylo’s eyes, making him step away from the sheer force of his bubbling fury. “So that you may be able to hold the naked body of a woman in your arms?”

Kylo shakes his head, his mouth opening to protest, but nothing comes out. He finds himself wanting to curl into submission once again, just as he always has. To obey, just as he has been trained.

“What did you do with her, Ren?” Hux demands, continuing to advance on him, the rage finally cracking through his face, turning his vacant expression into a snarl that burns from his eyes and his teeth. “What has she been teaching you?”

Kylo continues to shake his head, his voice coming out much quieter than Hux’s.

“It isn’t like-”

“Do you realize that if you’ve laid her, you will burn for it?!” Hux asks him. “If you touched her in any way, you will be damned for falling to such a godless harlot!”

“What do you mean?” Kylo questions desperately, still shrinking slightly away from the rabid man. “I can’t be damned. The prophet told me, he told both of us we are pure of heart. If we serve the church, we are exempt from God’s wrath. Have we done anything but give our lives to this place?”

Hux stops his advancement as Kylo stands before him hesitantly, perplexed at Hux’s outrage and fear of eternal damnation that Kylo does not want to admit he has been pondering about at times as well. But Hux, of all people he would think, should be most sure of Palpatine’s judgement.

“Do you think the decree of the prophet holds any bearing when the Devil is at work?!” he exclaims, his bloodshot eyes screaming as the small flames from the few candles lighting the darkened cathedral dance darkly around them. “This witch has driven me to madness with her dark powers. She’s wrapped her cruel hand about my heart and forced me to kill!”

The words spill from his mouth as if they have been held back for far too long until the man could no longer physically bear to continue to leave them unsaid. And now they hang quietly in the church, untouched between only the two of them and the lingering presence emanating from the many holy artifacts that surround them, watching the two men.

Kylo feels as if the last piece of the world he used to know has finally shattered right before his eyes. It was a world that needed shattering in order for him to see properly. Tonight however, as he stands before this man he used to think he owed everything to, a man he thought would always be so much better, smarter, and faithful than him… he wonders why all of this horror had to happen in order for him to finally begin to see for the first time.

“You killed Pryde,” Kylo breaks the unhinged silence. “You love Rey too… just as much as everyone else does… that’s why you wanted to bring her to the church that night. You didn’t want her arrested or brought before God. You wanted her for yourself.”

Hux takes his eyes off Kylo finally, taking a step back as he seems to become lost in awful terror that must reside within his own mind.

“And now you’ve… you’ve murdered someone,” Kylo speaks, needing to say it in order to force his mind to truly believe it is even possible. “And you’re letting her take the blame for it because she doesn’t love you back… you want her killed because she doesn’t want you.”

Hux looks back up at him only when it appears that he has painted his callous expression back upon his face.

“You forget your place, Ren,” he speaks, an emotionless tone matching his face. “You’re hardly a man. You’re a dog we send out to intimidate those who would defy us, who would rise against the holiness of this church. I brought you back here all those years ago because I knew how empty headed you were. You have no place in thinking you have any right to act upon your own will when you have given your life to serve us. You know nothing of faith or love or anything you may think you know of simply because you’ve become infatuated with an immodest woman.”

He takes another step forward, a flicker of pleasure going through his eyes as he continues speaking this way before it is quickly covered up with his cold eyes.

“And to pass judgement on someone who is in every way your superior is shameful. You show contempt to this church by allowing a scavenger to reside within its walls, you scorn your superiors by neglecting to wear your given clothing in the presence of others, and you dishonor God with your impure fantasies.”

Hux takes a step back, correcting his posture as he glances off somewhere over Kylo’s shoulder, his voice cutting out quick and loud across the chamber as he calls for the guards that Kylo had not known were waiting where they had been instructed to stand by.

“It is clear you need to be reminded of why you are meant to be silent and follow orders,” Hux tells him as Kylo turns to see a handful of armed guards moving towards them, surrounding him as they look at Hux for instructions. “It would appear Ren has become corrupted by the witch’s black magic,” Hux informs them, nodding at them to seize the former knight.

Kylo pulls slightly at the rough hands that grab his arms, thinking of his sword that is lying somewhere up in the bell tower, having been untouched since the moment Rey had arrived in Notre Dame.

“Lock him in the bell tower and be sure he can not escape,” Hux orders before his eyes focus back gazing coldly into him. “Perhaps if you are able to watch the scavenger whore hang for her sins before your eyes tomorrow evening, you won’t think of ever going against my command again.”

Kylo screams and fights in agony at hearing the confirmation of Rey’s fate as he’s dragged away toward the stairwell leading back up to the tower while Hux calmly turns and walks away without a second glance.

Chapter Text

There is nowhere for Kylo to look but down at the hangman’s noose that sways menacingly in the evening air. And as it seems, that is all anyone else in the city cares to look at as well as they all gather eagerly in wait of the pending execution.

The punishment stand in the square has been temporarily reconstructed to form the gallows where the latest victim of Notre Dame’s corrupt wrath will hang. All executions and punishments must take place before the church so that God may view the penance most clearly. At least that is what Kylo has been told. Today, it seems that Rey is going to be killed right in front of the church just so that he can see it most clearly.

Heavy chains have been wrapped tightly around his chest and arms, binding him to one of the many pillars that stretch along the open hallway of the bell tower. His legs are splayed out before him, the tip of his boots just touching the very edge of the walkway that dips down toward the maze of ledges and statues that he and Rey had climbed down to escape.

The maze she had climbed down just before she had been taken away from him.

He feels no anger. No pain or sadness, not anymore. He spent all last night and all today feeling such emotions. Nothing but numbness surrounds him now. He can hardly even feel the steel bite of the chains digging into his skin through his clothes any longer. He feels as if every bit of fight or hope that could have blazed through him once has been snatched away. He knows he is helpless. There is nothing he can do to stop what is coming. And it is his fault.

Strange enough, there is a small part of him yearning for the prisoner carriage to come rolling out from the alleyway and Rey to step out where he will be able to see her again. If for the last time.

He wonders what he will do, when they bring her up to the gallows and execute her for a crime she did not commit. Will he be unable to look away? Or could he at least spare himself that? Could he perhaps instead picture her flying away, high up into the sky, away from the evils down here and towards that beautiful freedom she deserves?

What will he do once she’s gone? It is impractical, but he can not recall how life looked ever so worth living before he had been graced by her beautiful, smiling face.

Already, the world looks darker. Something feels drained away, stolen.

How will the sun shine the same when she is not there to dance the mornings away? How can there be any merriment in the world if she is not here to look upon everything with her wondrous, comforting eyes that hold the promise that her love is the most precious on Earth to have?

As Kylo slumps against his bonds, he realizes how delirious he sounds even in his own mind. He can’t recall if he ever thought in such ways before he saw Rey.

He wonders about what Hux had said. About this feeling being nothing but a spell put over him to make his thoughts so consumed and frayed, to make his body feel not his own, and to make his mind act like that of a man… possessed.

This thought startles him at first. The thought that perhaps Hux could be right. That Rey has bewitched him somehow, left him with a curse that has destroyed his soul and absorbed every thought he will ever have again.

But it does not take much more than a moment for him to realize that he does not care.

If this is what it feels like to be cursed, to be damned, to be left with a damaged soul and evil heart… it’s been well worth all the love he has felt. It feels real to him, and that is how it will remain.

This revelation offers little comfort in his current position, but it at least sends somewhat of a reassurance through him that he need fear nothing so long as he believes in the love he feels still coursing through his heart for Rey, despite the dire end they both are soon to meet.

The sight of the crowd gathered before the gallows pleases Hux greatly. Not that he expected any different, but it is always reassuring to see how predictable humans are and continue to be. All that is needed is a man of holy stature to stand before them and speak a few well selected words to get them all cowering at his fingertips and bending to whatever he desires them to do.

“Today, we shall put an end to a dreadful evil that has infiltrated your city,” he announces to them as they all huddle around the stand of the gallows he resides upon. Women are clutching their husbands close, men have their eyes narrowed in anger. “You have been deceived by a sinful enchantress who has come to destroy all we hold dear in our hearts. Do not fear, for though she has spread most irredeemable terror including witchcraft, thievery, deception and murder, this night, as the sun sets in the coming hour, she will face her penance.”

The fiery reach of the setting sun spreads a thick layer of orange through the sky. Like a poison that has set over the purity that should always resound around the house of God. A poison that is soon to be washed out.

“I’ve been to see the accused,” he assures his captive audience, “and she refuses to repent for her sins. Therefore, I regret to admit that it appears the cursed sin within her runs deep through her soul. There is little that can be done to cure her wicked heart if she refuses to answer before God.”

The crowd murmurs in growing disapproval. The words stoke them, as Hux knew they would, and already half terrified of the evil he is telling them of and half crazed with raving excitement to see an execution, they begin to rally for the prisoner to be brought out.

“Her alliance with the Devil will result in the powers of Hell to come after everything good. But be certain that the prophet has entrusted me with God’s will.”

The crowd cheers in appreciation, some crying out in relief.

“I will do everything in my power to get her to repent before the church and before God. But shall she refuse to atone for her sins once again, we shall do what we must to please our Lord and to protect this Earth.”

The cheering is louder now. Almost…

“Before the sun sets on us this night, an evil shall be purged and a witch who set damnation upon us will be sent back to where she came from.”

That is all it takes. Hardly any effort, he thinks. And his curse can now be easily purged, without any resistance, and with the prophet’s blessing as well. At least that is what he can tell himself.

Palpatine would not deny him this. This is what is best. This is what is right. This is God’s test, for him and him alone. He does not need the prophet’s guidance. He knows what God wants of him, his task.

There is no one now who will protest. No one left to stand in the way of him and his mission. The same crowd that had adored and applauded Rey for her beauty and her dance are now rallying for her death.

All of Finn’s efforts to secretly rally members of the Resistance to launch an attack on the church had not been in vain. In fact, he thinks now that he hadn’t needed to spend all his time convincing everyone.

Everything had happened so fast. News of a scavenger girl who had been arrested and sentenced to hang for the murder of Captain Pryde, a crowd quickly gathering before the gallows to hear the words of the archdeacon, words of how a great sin will be purged once this culprit is punished.

Their spies’ news that it is Rey that they have captured and accused sent the entire underground rebellion into a mad frenzy.

Everyone here knows the unmatched tenderness that resides in Rey’s heart. Anyone upon hearing such devastating news erupts with protest, shouting in unison and agreement to all others, knowing what the church has done.

“This is an act of war!” they cry as they gather in groups, preparing weapons. Preparing for battle. “They mean to hang an innocent woman!”

“If they hang her, who will be next?! We must attack!”

“Now’s the time for rebellion!”

“Now is when we must free Exegol!”

“Now is when we take Notre Dame!”

The battle cries echo through the hallways as people sharpen swords, prepare torches, gather the limited devices of devastation that have been saved up until now. Saved for a moment like this that they all knew was coming.

Finn feels an anger burn in him as well as he helps the others prepare their attack. Anger at himself for allowing this to happen, for presenting an innocent young woman to the unspeakable dangers that have always run rampant in this city. And anger at the church for taking everything beautiful, everything he ever loved away from him. And now they have taken Rey as well. The most pure, light soul he has ever seen, and they speak of her as a demon, a murderess. And they intend to kill her for it.

He sees Poe here and there. They don’t speak or even make eye contact. They simply do what needs to be done, going about and preparing every member of their ranks for the war that has been a long time coming.

Finn can’t tell how Poe feels about the news of Rey’s coming fate. He’s eager, no doubt for the approaching action. He’s always secretly longing for a fight, and there’s no doubt that he has been yearning to prove himself as a leader in battle as well as a leader in strategy against the church. But it’s difficult to tell now. Finn realizes how easy it always used to be for him to know exactly what was going on in that man’s head, but his face has been guarded for weeks now. Guarded from him, perhaps.

And it hurts, suddenly. So instantly, now when he is preparing to fight a battle for everything he believes in, he feels a sickening hesitation course through him as he watches the man he used to love, whom he may still love, from afar. And he wishes so badly that none of this had ever happened.

He wishes the church had never become corrupted. He wishes the Resistance had never needed to be born and he would have never been assigned to travel to Jakku. He wishes he never knew of Rey nor she of him and this place. And he longs for a time he and Poe had lived in peace.

“Something the matter, Finn?”

He startles, nearly dropping the handful of torches he had gathered up in his arms and was supposed to be handing out before he had apparently fallen into a brief stupor.

“No, ma’am,” he answers to General Organa herself who had stepped around towards his small corner of work without him even noticing. “Just… I’m just…”

He stutters, suddenly feeling a lump in his throat that he crushes down mercilessly as he tears his eyes away from where Poe has brisked off once more to help a group of men test out the small stack of crossbows.

“I know it’s scary,” Leia speaks, her voice gentle enough to not garner the attention from the others running about, tearing through the hallways and rooms, making him and the General look as if they are in the middle of a hurricane simply standing motionless. “I never wanted it to come to this.”

The sadness in the General’s eyes is enough to tell Finn what she thinks of this mess. But Leia’s voice did not speak in protest against the rallying voices today. Perhaps that was best, because Finn fears her disapproval may not have mattered now.

“No one wants a war,” Finn tells her, watching her sad, painfully empty looking eyes gaze thoughtlessly off somewhere beyond him. “But if there is ever a time to fight, it’s now.”

She nods without disagreement, but the emptiness remains. Finn is jarringly reminded that no one knows much about Leia’s family. If she has any, she hasn’t revealed as much.

He decides she must not, at least anywhere around here. Can someone look so empty if they have someone close to them, someone of their own blood or understanding to share in their troubles with?

The thought reminds him that he has no family either. Not anymore, at least. Not for a while. Not since he and Poe have grown apart. Do his eyes look that empty as well?

“I know what must be done,” Leia relents, her eyes skimming regretfully over the room full of Resistance members… her Resistance members… a lot of which most likely won’t live through tonight. “We can’t abandon Rey and leave her to those monsters. I only… I wish that…”

Something suddenly fills her eyes, something hopeful yet even more sad than Finn could imagine. But it fades away quickly.

“What?” he questions, but she seems to shake the thought away, whatever it had been.

“Let us hope that by tomorrow, the church’s oppression will be obliterated,” is all she says to him before turning away and leaving him to his task.

Chapter Text

Rey is able to sleep a bit throughout the day, but she would liken it more to a strange state between consciousness and unconsciousness than actual rest. Her mind recognizes that her getting enough sleep is somewhat pointless now, so she wonders if perhaps her body is catching on to her impending doom.

She is afraid of thinking about what is waiting for her somewhere out there in the square tonight, so she spends her final day in this wretched cell mostly concerning herself with her foot. It certainly feels as if it has grown worse throughout the night. It seems to pulse endlessly with an ache that crawls agonizingly all the way up her leg and the color of the skin now is one she can not even name.

It makes her feel somewhat better as she pretends to be mending it all day. Or it at least keeps her mind distracted.

The clock chimes seven times, and already Rey can see the orange light of sunset peeking past the bars of her cage. She hears the footsteps of the guards and the jangling of the keys at her door.

She makes no move towards them. They’re the ones that mutilated her foot, so if they want her to move somewhere, she’s perfectly inclined to let them drag her there themselves without any assistance from her.

After she is locked in the prisoner’s carriage that begins shuttling off towards the path leading away from the Palace of Justice and in the direction of the town square, she leans her head against the wooden bars and decides to look only at the sky.

A whole matter of things cross her mind on her journey to the gallows. She remembers looking up at this same sky years ago when she was just a child, picturing the life she wanted for herself. A life she now realizes is quite impossible for someone in this cruel world to ever have.

She wonders about the priest who had come to visit her last night in her cell. She wonders what she ever did to him to make him hate her so. To force him to break all he practices and preaches, all he knows of faith and love, just to see her hang. She wonders if this man has perhaps never known any kindness in his life. Or if perhaps he has, but his heart is incapable of feeling it. The cold feeling that had gone through her when she had touched his hands felt like a glimpse into what lies within him.

She thinks about Kylo. She thinks about the intense love she had felt that seemed to happen upon her so suddenly, but had been burning between them both for perhaps a longer time than she had been able to recognize.

She recalls what she had seen on his palm. How there was such a strong, pure goodness that she saw lived inside him, but there was something else struggling in him as well… the evil of those around him that had seeped deep into his soul.

There is a small part of her that briefly becomes angry and bitter when thinking about this as she sits tied to the side of this carriage on her way to her death. She wonders if Kylo is really as devoted to her as he claimed to be or if he will remain nothing but a slave to the church. Has she misread him? Will he bow to whatever has ahold of his mind?

She supposes she’ll never have the chance to know. But there is no point in holding any anger in her heart now.

Rey is snapped out of her private reverie once the carriage is pulled out into the open from behind the buildings they had been passing by and something suddenly slams against the bars she’s leaning against.

She pulls away, painfully rattled by whatever had collided against the side of the carriage, and as her attention is brought down from the sky, it is met with a hoard of people rushing to surround the slowly moving carriage to scream unintelligible words toward her, their eyes hot and angry as fists slam against the bars, as if they were trying to tear past the barrier to get to her themselves.

Rey thinks she has stumbled into a horrid nightmare as she turns her head helplessly all around her, feeling the cage rattle as the screams fill her ears. Chants demanding her death, cursing her for bringing sin upon them. Hands reach past the futile bars she’s tied to to grab at her hair and scratch at her face, but thankfully the carriage is pulled along quickly enough so that no one can keep their hold on her for long.

She looks desperately for Kylo, for Finn, for anyone she knows, a single kind face, but there is nothing but a sea of murderous looking townsfolk who continue shouting and banging at the cage.

Tears welling in her eyes, she turns back up to look towards the sky, pushing out the cries of so many people who seem eager to see her die. People she doesn’t know, people she’s never seen before in her life. So she focuses on the beautiful orange and purple colored sky, watching how the sun casts a fiery glow over the world, tainting it all with a deep, warm light.

The last thing her eyes see on this Earth will be something calm and beautiful, despite the fury that surrounds her on the ground.

She can’t even see the place where she will be hanged as the carriage stops and the guards go around to untie her from the bars and yank her out onto the street, just barely being able to push back the handful of people still trying to get at her.

She is marched up a set of wooden steps, biting down on her tongue the entire time so as not to cry out in pain at the weight being forced on her broken foot.

There are two figures already standing upon the platform once she is led up. One is the executioner, looking rather bored, she thinks, as he stands beside the noose that is already prepared and awaiting her. And the other is the priest who had come to her cell.

He looks at her now, with that cold, solid expression, like a face made out of immovable stone. She is pushed into place behind him, just in front of the precarious string of thick rope hanging down with menace.

“Good people of Exegol,” the priest's voice rings out, echoing through the square and finally quieting down the riotous crowd that is now huddled about the gallows. “This witch has been brought before us and before God to pay for her sins. After today, her evil will infect us no more and we shall be set free from the Devil’s cruel curse.”

The people cheer, though it is not the happy sound Rey usually would associate with the word.

“For the crimes of thievery, witchcraft, and murder, I sentence this enchantress to meet her master!”

Another cry rips through the crowd, and Rey’s blood stings like ice as she is suddenly yanked back and the executioner fits the necklace of rope around her throat in one tough movement, pulling it tight and nearly making her cry out in panic.

But she keeps herself silent, her face as blank as possible as she continues staring up at the fading sun.

However, after hearing the executioner move away from her and walk back down the steps, her eyes slowly travel down to the priest, who has now turned towards her.

He moves closer to her, his eyes still cold at first, but changing ever so slightly once he is inches from her, his voice low enough so that only she can hear his words.

“This does not need to be your end,” he speaks to her in a soft, but deadly voice. “Give yourself to me. Say you will be mine, and I will save you even now. No one will question me. I will take you away from here and save you from the fires of hell that await you if you continue to deny me.”

There is no part of her, not even the quickest thought in her mind, that wants to bend to his plea. The desperate, beseeching look that filters through his eyes does nothing to her. If anything, Rey finds herself standing even more determined and unperturbed.

“I’d be more pleased to die a hundred deaths than to ever feel you touch me again,” she speaks clearly back to him, her voice refusing to follow the quiet, secretive tone he had used.

There is a fire that flickers in his gaze, burning more intensely than the vibrant color in the sky, before he has turned away from her, facing the crowd once more.

“The murderess has once again refused to repent before God,” he announces as Rey’s heart feels as if it has turned to heavy stone in her chest. “Therefore, I sentence this sinful witch to her eternal punishment.”

He turns his head toward where the executioner waits beside the lever that will end her life.

She chooses to close her eyes now, hearing the crowd go silent as they wait. Or perhaps the silence is just in her mind.

She had thought, in these final seconds, her mind would have been more full. More desperate to think about all she has seen and felt and all she wished she could have known. But there is nothing but calm and acceptance and… a willingness. There is simply nothing else that needs to be thought about.

Nothing, but the sound of the lever pulling, and the ground disappearing beneath her before she falls into blackness.

Kylo’s heart breaks when he sees her. She’s so far from him as they drag her up to the gallows, but he can see every inch of her face as if she were merely a few feet from him. Her expression holds not an ounce of fear or sadness. She is quiet as Hux announces her crimes against humanity and the noose is wrapped firmly around her throat.

He feels something stirring in his chest as he hears the horrid words spoken about her, how the crowd hollars and chants, eager to see her die before them, answering for sins she did not commit.

His body shifts against the chains that hold him back, his breathing accelerating as his palms shake, curling into fists where they had previously been lying uselessly against the ground.

Something in him is angry that she looks so stoic. He is angry that she isn’t fighting, screaming, clawing to get free, demanding to be released, insisting on her innocence.

She has surrendered the voice in his head seems to smirk at him. It would be useless for her to fight. There is nothing she can do.

But Kylo knows the real thought that is gripping his mind, that is really keeping him chained down without any fight left in him either.

There is nothing you can do.

But isn’t there?

He remembers that desperate feeling he had, that ugly horrible feeling the night he had followed Rey down the dark streets, intent to get to her before Hux did, to stop whatever he was going to do to her before it could happen.

He had succeeded then, had he not? Rey had been safe, if only for a short while. And he had kept her safe when she was here with him.

Hux moves closer to her now, speaking to her words only she can hear.

He will always win. You are powerless compared to him.

No. He saved her once. He had stopped this before it could happen then.

Hux steps away from her now, looking as if something had struck him hard across the face. He turns away from her, his voice booming hauntingly, ringing through Kylo’s ears and throughout the entire bell tower as he sentences Rey to death.

She’s lost… in just seconds now… just sit and wait for it to be over-

“No!”

Kylo’s growl tears from his throat, sounding inhuman in his own ears as he tears against the chains pounding him to the pillar.

He feels every inch of metal biting and bruising into his skin as he pulls his body forward, his eyes swimming in rage, his growling turning to screams of fury as it feels as if the entire tower shakes with his anguish.

The chains creak and groan in protest, but he doesn’t relent. Even when it is his own bones and flesh that are burning in pain. He summons every inch of strength, physical and mental, his eyes focused only on his goal to keep him fighting.

He hears the sound of one chain snapping, and turns his legs back to help push him forward, away from the remaining metal surrounding his chest and arms.

The column shudders and cracks as Kylo bursts free, several of the chains breaking at once, sending him propelling forward, landing roughly on his hands and knees.

Shaking the clinging chains off his arms, he turns back towards the tower, running back inside towards his chambers and the place he had last left his sword.

Strapping the weapon to his belt and grabbing a coil of heavy rope sitting cast aside along with other supplies being used to assist with construction on the second bell tower, he runs back out towards the edge of the landing, wrapping one end of the rope around an outstretched ledge, tying it securely before beginning to scale down the walls of the church.

He leaps from ledge to ledge, swinging from the statues, racing against time as he watches the executioner grab ahold of the lever, his arms positioning to pull it back seconds before Kylo can push himself from the wall, clinging to the rope as he swings down towards the crowd, his boots shaking the wooden platform when he lands.

A gasp ripples through the crowd as he brings out his sword, waving it with all his might toward the rope attached to Rey’s neck and cutting through it just as the floor opens beneath her and her body tumbles to the ground.

He leaps down after her, easily fighting off the two bumbling guards that try to subdue him. They are quick to recognize it is a dangerous attempt to make.

He picks up Rey’s limp form off the ground, throwing her over his shoulder as he runs back up the platform, not wasting a moment as he sheaths his sword and grabs the rope again, gritting his teeth as he pushes himself away, back towards the wall he had just lept from, crawling up the rope while keeping Rey from sliding right off his shoulder.

He can hear the shouting of guards, the scrambled murmurings of the disrupted crowd, but he keeps his gaze focused on the bell tower.

He climbs and climbs, feeling his arms want to give out, his knees aching and his spine protesting, but he doesn’t stop. He hardly even breathes until his feet have reached the steady ledge that he had jumped from a mere seconds ago, tossing the rope away and slowly turning back to face the crowd below as he pulls Rey safely into his arms.

His eyes gaze directly into Hux’s, only this time there is no fear. He feels no submission, no need to cower in gratitude and the painful need for forgiveness. There is now only defiance and victory.

Kylo’s eyes stay locked on him like this, unmoving, even though his voice is meant to reach out toward every citizen in Exegol, half in reassurance and hope, and the other half in a call for rebellion.

“SANCTUARY!”

Chapter Text

Kylo lays Rey’s limp body gently down onto the bed in his chambers. The roaring from outside that had grown to reach a thunderous pitch is slightly muted now, temporarily pushed aside as he focuses on the faint but steady sound of breath still coming from Rey’s lips.

As he rushes away momentarily and returns with a pitcher of cool water and a fresh rag in his hands, he looks her over to search for any other injuries, figuring she must have passed out from exhaustion, but wanting to be sure nonetheless.

He sees her right foot is bandaged sloppily and seeping with blood in a few places. He unwraps the careless mending to see her foot completely broken and bent into a horribly mangled shape, streaked with dried blood.

His heart aches with sorrow at the sight and soon with anger.

They did this to her on purpose. Punishment for not conforming to their ideals of modesty. They could care less if she murdered anyone. They wanted to see her in pain, perhaps merely for the fact that she came from a foreign land with ways they did not recognize.

Realizing it is useless to waste time on anger now, Kylo finds a set of clean cloth to tear into strips and works to gently wrap them around her foot.

He runs the cold rag along her face, watching her chest slowly rise and fall, seeing the beautiful pink of her lips return as color comes back to her face. He thinks of how he had felt when she had come to rescue him from the cruel townspeople and the harsh sting of the sun, when she had tended to his injuries and helped him back into the safety of the church. He is glad he is finally able to return the favor.

Rey awakens to the feeling of cool water on her face.

She thinks at first that it is rain. The sensation gives her the same, wonderful feeling those splashes of cold liquid gave her once when she had danced through the empty streets and felt them on her face. She wonders if her body had fallen miraculously through the rope, and everyone has thought her dead, leaving her body where it lay. And now the rain has come to comfort her.

But as she comes to, she feels her body laying upon something warm. Something soft. And very familiar.

As are the eyes gazing down upon her when hers finally open, and the comforting view of the stone church walls bleeds into view.

One hand strokes along her face, while the other touches a cooling rag to her head.

She is confused at first. She can’t recall what had happened. She had been about to die, hadn’t she? Is this a cruel hallucination? Has she been dreaming this whole time?

Blinking up at the face staring down anxiously above her and feeling the heat of his body close to her, sitting beside her on the bed, sends her heart beating into a frenzy. A frenzy of realization.

“You saved me,” she whispers, her voice stunned beyond emotion as she looks up at him.

He freezes, looking uncertain after she speaks. She tries to force a smile onto her lips, but her head rings in misery as she does.

She pushes herself up, feeling her body ache as she does. Kylo’s arms are quickly around her, pulling her safely against him. She leans willingly against his chest, her mind overjoyed as his scent that she did not realize she missed so much suddenly surrounds her.

Everything that has happened over the past two days comes flooding back over her. Every horrible and frightening thing she has felt, every terror that has been inflicted, and she can’t help but gasp in pain, feeling something stab at her heart as tears finally wrack through her body.

She shakes and sobs, but is so thankful to have someone here, someone who cares that she has been through the most horrible things, someone who has done everything they could to make sure she was not harmed, even before this accusation destroyed her.

“Don’t be afraid,” Kylo speaks to her as he holds her tight, his voice sounding confused and frightened. “They can’t harm you here, remember? I promise, I’m not going to let anything happen this time… Rey, you’re safe now… please don’t cry…”

It grows quiet. It’s soothing, hearing nothing in this small little room, feeling nothing but strong, warm arms holding her, rocking her gently in an effort to alleviate her grief.

She leans back up to look at him, seeing how fearful his face is as he gazes back at her.

“I won’t fail you ever again,” he promises her before she can reassure him that she is not upset with him. “I will always be there. Nothing will ever stop me.”

She smiles at him now, through her tears, her heart suddenly too filled with love and joy to wallow in her pain.

“I know,” she tells him. “I’m not crying because of that. I’m crying because… I do believe that I… I love you, Kylo.”

His eyes look at her now almost in a daze. As if those simple words had shifted something entirely within him, something that makes him stare at her in wonder, like he can not believe such words could ever be spoken towards him.

Her hand reaches up to touch his face, wondering how she can make him realize how capable he is of being loved.

“I saw something,” she tells him softly, lowering her hand from his face to reach back and take his hands from her waist so that she can hold them in hers. “While I read your palm. I didn’t tell you.”

He looks to only slightly come out of his astonished state to nod his head slowly, a knowing look in his eyes.

“I see the same pattern on your hand as I do on mine,” she reveals, taking his hand up and gently caressing her hand against it, staring down at the familiar lines gracing along his palm that she had recognized the first night she had gazed upon it.

He is wondrous as he stares down at his own hand, his eyes widening slightly in questioning, asking silently what this means.

“Kylo, I’ve never heard of such things before, but something tells me… we must be connected somehow.”

She grins as she brushes his dark hair away from his face.

“I think we’ve always been connected. And you saw it even before I did.”

His gaze looks down for just a moment before a new pair of confident eyes look up into hers before speaking a single word.

“Ben.”

The name strikes something in her. As if she needs no explanation. It is something she already knows.

“Ben,” she repeats, the name feeling wonderful spoken quietly between the two of them.

“My name is Ben Solo.”

Saying the name seems to lift something from him. His eyes are brighter. His smile is wide and sure. There is no trace of fear or hesitation as he looks upon her now.

“I love you.”

His words are as sure as his face. His hand reaches up to curl around the back of her head, and she looks down as his lips grow closer and closer to hers and her eyes begin to close as she draws nearer to them.

A crash and a roar from outside startles them both, the two of them turning their heads to look over towards the window, where a sudden series of screams and violent clattering rises up.

The two of them jump up from the bed, running out of the room and towards the veranda close by to look down towards the foot of the church where the noise had come from.

Rey’s mouth opens in a gasp of horror as a sea of people flood almost every inch of the square. Guards and civilians alike all push and shove, weapons in hand, torches and swords, spears and axes. All of them fighting towards the locked doors of Notre Dame.

A handful of guards carry a battering ram through the enormous swarm of people.

“They’re coming for you,” Ben breathes quietly, his voice growing darker with rage.

She turns toward him slowly, and he quickly grabs her shoulders, pulling her away from the edge of the balcony.

“Go hide in my chambers,” he directs her, already leading her back inside the tower and down the corridor leading to where they had come from. “Don’t leave the tower.”

He releases her before turning away quickly and heading towards the ladder that leads up to the second tower he had told her not to go to. An urgent feeling goes through her, an instinct to run after him, but she remains in place as he calls back only once more to her in a deadly determined voice that frightens her a bit.

“I’ll keep them away.”

* * *

They had been seconds from attacking when Kylo Ren had swooped down, seemingly out of nowhere, snatching Rey up and carrying her away towards the church.

The crowd had gone into an uproar. No one knew what to do. Finn had stood there in stunned silence in his place hidden discreetly amongst the citizens gathered to watch the execution. But it didn’t take long until, after minutes of standing around in a confused hysteria, the guards arrived in herds, charging towards Notre Dame with weapons in hand.

Finn had glanced around to the others hidden amidst the crowd, all of them with the same expression on their face. This is what we came to do.

“It’s a facade!” a Resistance member someone in the crowd shouts as they all rush toward the large closed doors.

“They knew we were attacking!” another shouts. “They wanted to make sure no one saved her!”

“The church wants her dead! We’ve got to take it now!”

Finn tries desperately to hear Poe’s voice somewhere in all of this mess, but with the mix of weapons clanging, Resistance members shouting in protest and the rest of the citizens shouting in anger, he can’t make out anything.

He takes out the sword he had hidden in the cloak that was keeping him shielded from view, shoving his way through the crowd.

Some of the Resistance members are already attacking the guards and Finn does his best to focus on getting to the doors. His heart races in fear as he thinks about Poe, no doubt in the front of the charge, not shying away from any guard that tries to fight him off.

He could be dead already. They could all be dead. Finn could be the only one left. He doesn’t know. He can’t tell anyone apart. All he knows is that he is in a mess of people, half who want to break into the church to kill Rey and half who want to save her.

His body seems to move as if it were controlled by something else, some inner instinct to keep moving forward. Once his mind has gotten over the shock and the fear, he is focused on nothing else but moving forward, to wherever it may lead. He doesn’t know what will happen. He doesn’t know if Rey is even still alive or not. All he can do is keep fighting. That is what everyone else is doing.

Ben races to the highest level of the tower, where a row of enormous cauldrons keep buckets of lead used to help build the structure. It had been decided that the second bell tower needed to be built higher and more steady seeing as the first structure had been built when the legendary church had limited means for repairs.

As soon as more money had gone towards Notre Dame, the second tower went into immediate reconstruction, leaving an entire floor full of supplies that, until now, Ben hadn’t realized could be quite lethal.

He moves quickly to first light the fires under all the cauldrons, his pulse racing madly at the sound of the battering ram colliding against the doors. While he waits for the lead to heat, he runs up to the ledge, glancing down to see the large crowd gathered right where he wants them.

Leaning down and grabbing one of the many beams lying in neatly stacked piles, he hauls it up onto the ledge.

There is no hesitation and he shoves the heavy beam the rest of the way off the balcony and tumbling down to the ignorant crowd below.

He hears screams ring out sharply, but he feels no remorse. Only relief that at least a handful of them have been taken out and can’t get to Rey.

He lugs up the rest of the beams one by one, letting them fall into the crowd down below. He doesn’t look down until after the tenth or fifteenth one, worried that seeing any dead bodies strewn about the ground would send his mind off his path.

There are bodies laid out along the steps and splatters of dark red blood drenching the grey stone.

The guards still have managed to keep up their attack, so Ben runs back to the cauldrons, seeing the heated grey liquid inside bubble and broth with intense heat.

He ignores the blistering that burns through his leather gloves onto his hands as he grips the handle of the first cauldron, pushing with all his strength, his shoulders shaking as he begins to tip the heavy vat towards the ledge.

The molten lead spills out over the lip of the rusted bronze basin, steaming and hissing as it runs along its directed path before filtering out between the statues placed just below the edge of the balcony and spraying down upon the crowd below.

The screams reach his ears by the time he has reached the second vat, grunting in pain as his already burnt hands wrap around the next smoldering handle, but he doesn’t loosen his grip for a second as he pushes the next cauldron over, thinking of a single one of those guards or deranged citizens getting in and putting their hands on Rey, who he’d only managed to save from death minutes ago. He’s not about to let them take her from him now.

He doesn’t stop until all the vats have been emptied and all the beams have been thrown. He doesn’t care whose life he takes or if his soul is permanently damaged for all eternity. Right now, he feels as if he could burn the entire world down for her.

Chapter Text

Rey tries her best to keep herself huddled up in the corner of the room, or thrown down on top of the bed that is laced with the wonderful comfort of Ben’s scent whenever she does lie upon it.

But the sounds of crashing and screaming and shouting and banging from outside draw her towards the open window even though everything in her mind is telling her she does not want to see what is happening and that she should let Ben take care of everything as he said he would. But something about just listening to it all feels wrong.

The first sight that greets her as she peeks out into the darkening outside, is the bodies collapsed on the steps. Some of them have streaks of blood staining the stone near where they lie, others look to be covered in silvery material that looks like paint but has locked stiffly around their bodies, turning them into grotesque looking statues stuck in twisted positions.

There are dead guards and citizens alike, the rest of them scrambling in every direction. There are some still attacking the doors, but their numbers are so small, it can hardly be called a threat.

Her eyes leap through the sadistic display watching the people blindly scamper about, feeling like she should hate them and feel glad at their terror after everything they have inflicted upon her. But all she feels is sorrow, looking down upon the massacre at Notre Dame’s door. All she can think is that she is the cause of all of this. None of these people would be dead had she stayed where she was in her safe and familiar solitude where she brought no trouble to anyone.

Her attention is pulled towards two figures struggling amidst the demented chaos. Two men, one of them still looking as if he is ambling up the steps toward the door, the other trying to lock his arms around him, pulling him back, shouting at him, words that Rey can not hear. But she can make out their faces.

It’s Finn. Looking… half mad. There is some blood on his face, and his eyes look as if they are burning red as he claws and kicks against Poe, who is the one shouting at him and dragging him away from the church.

She almost cries out in horror, her hands going to cover her mouth as she watches the two of them, slipping along the blood and silver liquid covering the ground. Looking around at the fallen beams and drips of whatever burning fluid is still being poured from above, she stands still in complete terror for many seconds, waiting, sure she is about to see either one of them be killed instantly before her eyes.

She knows she has to move. She has to run. She has to tell Ben to stop before…

Pulling herself out of her frightened trance, she turns quickly to run out into the corridor and up towards the second tower to tell Ben to stop now, that the only people remaining down there are her friends.

But she nearly falls to the ground as her feet stumble to an instant stop when she sees a figure standing silently in the doorway, watching her.

It is the priest. Though he does not look as he did when she last saw him standing before her at the gallows. He had looked steady, collected, if a bit shaken. Even the way he had looked when he visited her cell was somewhat human. But now…

There is something horribly wrong in his eyes. Something… broken.

“I had guessed I might find you here,” he speaks with venom in his voice as he glances briefly about the small room. “Has this not been where you’ve been spending most of your time using your ungodly tricks on the weak hearts of men?”

She stays frozen in place as he inches past the doorway into the room.

“Ever since you first saw me, you’ve insisted on tormenting me,” he growls, his eyes lighting up with an intense evil that locks her in place with fear, her heart pounding as he moves closer to her.

She is cornered, just as she was before in the cell.

“I don’t know why you can not die,” he continues in this terrifying state, his face aching with something, some yearning long denied. “I know not why you insist on destroying my soul.”

He moves quickly, grabbing her arms sharply as he steps forward and closes the shrinking gap between them.

“Please,” she begs of him, her eyes frightful orbs as she gazes at him pleadingly, imploring him not to harm her, even though she knows by now that he, a man who claims to be of God, will stop at nothing to see her suffer.

And as predicted, he shows no inkling of mercy as his furious eyes take her in.

“There is nothing now to stop me from taking what I deserve.”

She is thrown violently towards the ground, her voice briefly taken from her as she lands painfully against the stone floor, only a gasp coming from her throat when she tries to cry out.

Before she has hardly opened her eyes, his body is on top of hers, his hands ripping at the fabric of her tunic, tearing it from her chest.

She kicks and claws at him, her heart racing as she pants in fear. She pushes and scratches and strikes with her hands, but he shoves off her attempts with ease, holding her down with strength powered by pure rage.

“Why do you struggle from me?!” he demands, his hands taking her wrists and crushing them against the hard stone, pinning them above her head. “You invite me in with your body and your bewitching eyes, and the words of the Devil on your lips, and still you make me feel as if I am forcing from you what you willingly hand out to every man who falls to your enchantments!”

Rey’s breath comes in desperate gasps as she writhes in his grasp, her legs stuck, pinned to the ground as are her arms. She closes her eyes and turns her head away, at least wanting the small mercy to not be forced to look upon the face of this monster.

“I beg you,” she breathes, her voice coming out as pained as the sharp grip of ice cold fear on her heart. “Leave me be. Why must you exist to bring me nothing but suffering?!”

“This has been the Devil’s doing,” he speaks, his voice surrounding her, drowning her in a sea of evil, dragging her down to whatever cold darkness this man’s soul resides in. “But now I will play no longer. You are mine.”

She lays still for a moment, paralyzed in terror. She only thinks to scream when she feels his hands leave her wrists, going down her body to rip at her belt. Her screams echo within the small room, through her ears, almost making it all worse. Reminding her how helpless she is. Though she does not know how she can be silent.

Ben watches with glee from above, seeing the work he has made of those who dared to try and break through the sanctity of the church. Those who would have defied the laws of Notre Dame just to drag an innocent woman out to the gallows. Now it is they who have been forced to reconcile with the Devil.

All the guards have been killed, either by the beams he had thrown, or in the case of the group attempting to break through the locked doors, by the three waves of molten lead that had showered in fruitful cascades down along the church steps.

Many of the civilians have been killed as well, but Ben can not help their loss. It was they who decided to act with vengeance and foolishness.

All the lead has been poured and every heavy beam tossed down. And as Ben looks upon the massacre he has inflicted, he sees only a handful of live bodies remaining, all of them scampering and limping away, making him want to roar in victory.

He runs back to the line of empty vats, beginning to put out the still burning and steadily growing fires beneath them. But his heart is struck, as if pierced by a sharp arrow when a horrid sound rings out from within the bell tower. The sound of a scream filled with unfiltered horror. The sounds of Rey’s scream.

No… it can’t be… he had watched everything, he had seen everything from right here. The doors hadn’t been opened, not a single person had gotten through. He killed them, he killed them before they-

Her voice echoes out again, filled with pain and fear that makes his chest ache and his body go limp, as if he could be robbed of consciousness by the simple sound of her terror.

He leaps over the fallen supplies strewn about the tower roof as he bounds toward the ladder that will lead him back down into the tower. He then forces his feet to move faster than he can even think, leaping across the corridor that comes out of the second tower and down towards the direction of the opposite hallway, where he had left Rey.

Her screams reverberate through the tower, off the bells above him as he runs, feeling as if he is within a nightmare where he knows in his heart he will not be able to get to her soon enough.

He has not taken a single breath as the sound of her voice draws nearer and nearer. He wants so desperately to call out to her, to tell her he is coming to her, but his throat is frozen. He feels only his feet hitting against the shaking platform of the tower as he runs, the doorway to his chambers sneaking painfully slowly into sight and within reach.

Ben places his hands on either side of the open doorway, still not allowing himself to take a breath as his eyes madly search upon the space before him.

Rey’s screaming stops as the man on top of her slowly turns his head toward the sound of beating footsteps that had come to a jarring holt outside the room.

Ben stares at Hux with a horror he has never felt before. A horror even stronger than that he had felt the night he learned that the man he had thought to be his savior had murdered another all for the lust of a woman.

He sees Rey, her clothes torn from her body, her face streaked with tears and looking more scared than he has ever seen her. More scared than she had looked when she had been seconds from death.

All three of them are still now, for a long moment, the darkness from outside painting the scene in the room with a ghoulish shadow that makes the horror and remorse in Ben’s eyes grow slowly into a blazing hate.

Hux looks as if he wants to say something. His eyes look frightened as Ben draws nearer, charging into the room and grabbing the man by his neck and pulling him up to his feet, yanking him away from Rey who remains frozen against the ground.

With one movement, he throws the man out of the room and into the outside corridor with so much force, he swears the entire tower shudders as Hux’s body collides against the wall.

Ben follows him out, not waiting for Hux to get his bearings before grabbing him again by the collar of his uniform, lugging him up a few inches before slamming him against the wall once more.

He hits him again and again against the wall, until both of his hands go to circle around the archdeacon’s throat when the fabric of his shirt begins to tear from his hold.

Something deep inside him is crying out in protest, intent on reminding him that this man is his friend, someone who helped him once. He made sure he had shelter and food and a good standing with the prophet, a position with the church.

But now he can only see things that had not been visible before. How ashamed and terrified he had once been when Hux had told him of the evil that lived within Ben’s soul, how the only way to cleanse it was to follow his direction. How Ben had once, so long ago it seems, wished to venture beyond the church’s walls, to find his own life. But no one had come to help him. All these years, he had convinced himself that Hux had helped him, he sought him out and brought him to salvation. But he had let him go off alone without any help for all that time until he was driven to sickness and despair.

He stops his violent movements, looking into the man’s eyes as he holds him by the throat, panting madly, his jaw clenched, thousands of words behind his lips that want to shower down upon the monster who has destroyed so much of his life.

Hux just stares up at him, his eyes gazing through his blood splattered hair that hangs in front of his face with a look that reads straight into Ben’s thoughts, as it always has.

You can’t do it, he tells him silently. Not after all I’ve done for you.

He throws him to the ground again, watching his body slump down the bloodied wall.

He glances back into the room where Rey is still lying on the ground, unmoved from where she had been before, only now her arms are circled around herself as she rolls slowly onto her side, the sound of her shaking gasps echoing painfully in Ben’s head.

Turning back to where Hux is lying pathetically on the ground, he lets out a growl of unbridled anger before reaching down and grabbing him by his robes.

Ben ignores the man’s thrashing and fighting as he begins dragging him down the corridor.

The light from outside has completely vanished now, the sun vacating the sky to leave it as nothing but a black mass. Not even the stars shine through on this night, blown away by the fires started in small circles around the church from fallen torches.

Ben continues to ascend up towards the second bell tower, not caring as Hux’s flailing body is dragged and flung against every step and wall and column they come across. He doesn’t stop until he reaches the highest level, where he had just left, where streaks of the now cooled hot lead crawl across the roof and drip down towards the ground below from the upturned cauldrons.

He turns back to the man on the ground behind him, going to grab him again.

But Hux suddenly leaps up towards him, a sharp shining blade in his hand that stabs menacingly towards Ben’s shoulder.

He catches the man’s wrists easily in his hands, the tip of the knife just barely scratching against his skin before he twists his grip, snapping Hux’s wrist with ease.

The man cries out in pain and rage as the knife falls to the floor and Ben moves with deadly efficiency, grabbing the man and throwing him against one of the turned over vats before pulling him back and holding him in a strong headlock as he drags him over towards the edge of the roof.

There is hardly any effort or strain needed. Ben has been trained most of his life to fight, to kill. Hux has not.

He lifts the man up in the air before tossing him just over the ledge.

Ben keeps a firm grip under Hux’s shoulders as he dangles him off the edge of the roof, watching the man’s legs kick and scramble for purchase that is far out of reach.

He lets him hang for just a moment, relishing in his fear. Fear that is hardly enough to repay the terror he has inflicted upon thousands.

“Ren,” he gasps out, his voice a croaked, panicked timbre that Ben has never heard from him before. It hardly sounds at all like the same strict, calculated man whom he has always thought so highly of. “You will burn with me,” Hux continues choking out as he stares at the fate awaiting him below. “Your sin will not go unpunished. You are no better than I.”

Words like this would have struck fear in Ben’s heart before. They would have made him reconsider everything, drop to his knees and beg his archdeacon for forgiveness. Plead for a way to cleanse his soul, to regain his standing with God.

But he feels nothing at these words now. Nothing except, for perhaps the first time in his life, complete assurance that what he is about to do is right.

“I used to envy you, Hux,” he whispers, leaning forward to make sure the man can hear him clearly. He smiles, an odd feeling of relief in him. “But now… I see all this time, you have been just as lost as I was.”

The man doesn’t answer. He hadn’t expected him to.

“Repent,” Ben commands him. “Ask for forgiveness for your sins. Then perhaps your soul can be saved.”

Ben doesn’t offer these words as revenge. He does not take pleasure in repeating them back to this man who has thrown this exact saying upon him most of his life. He says it because he wants Hux to see his wrong doing. He wants Hux to find that compassion and love that might have existed once, many many years ago when they were boys and had first entered this sacred place and felt it’s glory and beauty.

However, Ben had once forgotten his past life very easily. Perhaps Hux has as well.

“My sins were just,” the man declares, though with still a quiver of fear in his throat. “God will absolve me. And that scavenger witch will burn in hell with you at her side.”

Ben doesn’t know if Hux truly believes his own words. He doesn’t know if he yet again is trying to prey on the fearful, vulnerable part of Ben’s heart that once existed and kept him an obedient slave to the church. All he knows is that this man will not ever stop trying to hurt Rey as long as he can, corrupted by the twisted thoughts that now live in his mind.

Without another word or hardly even a breath, Ben releases his grip on the man’s shoulders, letting his body slide out from his grasp and plummet toward the ground below.

He looks away for a long moment before slowly leaning back over the ledge to see Hux’s body, sprawled and broken against the church steps, amidst a long pattern of other nameless bodies gathered in the silvery molten lead.

Another kill added to his already damned soul. There are too many to try and forgive now. Hundreds of innocents that he, at one time, thought to be heartless traitors who had already been cast aside by God and needed no mercy on Earth.

It is no one’s judgement to make. He knows that now. At least, it shouldn’t be. But maybe they don’t live in a world that was ever meant for fairness and peace. All things that everyone has been preached to practice and live by, but never follow.

Ben turns away from the gruesome scene he has created and runs back across the roof, down the tower and back down the corridor towards his chambers.

Rey is standing now. She has wiped the tears from her face and pulled her ripped clothes back up around herself. She looks at him as he walks quickly through the doorway, stopping just before he goes to touch her.

Though she gives him a brave face, he still sees her entire body shaking, her hands digging into her arms to try and steady her trembling as she hugs herself tightly, as he had seen her doing moments before.

Her eyes suddenly spark with pain as he keeps himself backed away from her, but as she takes one step towards him, he runs forward, immediately circling her in his arms.

Her arms slowly melt away from herself as she embraces him. Ben holds her tightly, his hand stroking slowly down her back as he whispers soft words of comfort and reassurance in her ear to calm her until her trembling begins to cease.

His eyes open after what feels like hours. He slowly pulls away, still keeping his arms wrapped around her waist.

Her eyes smile at him, all the sadness and fear brushed away for now. Ben can’t help but smile in return, his hand reaching up to brush along her face, his finger drawing across her lips.

“Your smile is so beautiful,” he tells her, something he has always wanted to say to her since the moment he saw that precious expression light up her face.

“So is yours,” she nods, her eyes briefly glancing down at his lips.

He saddens, his face falling as her hand goes to touch his cheek.

She frowns at his expression, and he moves his hands from her waist to gently take hers.

“I have to do something,” he tells her, his voice somber, but assertive.

Her eyes narrow in confusion, but he brushes his hands through her hair.

“I’m not leaving you,” she tells him before he can speak again. “I will go with you, wherever it is,” she swears without even knowing his destination.

So he takes her down the stairways with him, their hands never disconnecting as they run through the church, their footsteps echoing all around them as they race through the empty hallways, him holding onto her to keep her off her injured leg. But she moves just as fast as him, determined to get wherever they are going.

There is a sound coming from outside. A sound of many more footsteps, of a chorus of voices roaring in from the distance. It is a sound that filters through both Ben and Rey’s awareness for a brief moment, a sound that brings urgency to their movement, but no pause or hesitation in Ben’s mind. He does not stop on his path towards the deepest chamber set within Notre Dame.

The growing sound of war from outside is muffled away as they step down into the blackest corridor, behind a heavy cellar door that groans in misery as it is pulled open. Only a spare few dare to open this door.

Ben turns and places his hands on Rey’s arms as they arrive at the arch that will lead into the most sacred chamber.

“Wait outside,” he tells her. “I’ll be a moment, but I don’t want you to see what is inside.”

Her eyes gaze upon him once again with perplexity. But he touches his hand to the side of her face, his heart pounding almost painfully against his ribs as he leans forward and touches his lips gently to her forehead.

His lips ache at the sweet sensation of her skin, instantly yearning to feel the taste of her lips.

But he gently pulls away from her, his hands trailing down to hold her hands for a moment before turning towards the blackened archway.

Any warmth and light he had felt standing outside with Rey feels immediately sucked away as he walks down the cold chamber. The only time he had come down here before had been times when he had been preparing for severe punishment, either verbal or physical, and had been repeating over and over the words he would speak to beg for forgiveness.

This time, instead of thinking about whatever atrocities he had committed or which sins he had fallen prey to, his mind is focused solely on marching confidently through the large stone hallway, his hand locked firmly on the hilt of the sword at his belt.

Ben stares down the cloaked figure seated in the throne at the head of the grand chamber. There is not an inch of fear or intimidation. It seems so silly, standing before him now, thinking of how people speak of this man who lives down here like nothing more than a hermit, too scared to face the outside world.

His footsteps come to a stop as he stands before Palpatine, unsheathing his sword as he gazes into the shadowed face, feeling a weight between them.

“You dare defy me,” the man’s voice echoes out towards him, the sound of it reaching out for him, like a gnarled hand. Ben swears the entire temple shakes, just for a moment.

“You’ve brought evil here,” Ben answers the so-called prophet. “You’ve held this place captive long enough.”

The walls of the chamber tremble again. This time he knows he is not imagining it. His gaze draws up along the old, hollowed out stone that has already long begun to crack and break down, now struggling under the force from the growing mob outside that is forcing its way into the church. Ben had no idea how unsturdy the underground chapel really was.

Palpatine’s cruel, icy laugh resounds harshly through the room, making Ben’s attention quickly snap away from the walls and ceiling surrounding him, his sword raised slightly as the room seems to shift and groan, chunks of stone crumbling from the walls.

“You will be punished for your treachery,” Palpatine promises him, looking completely unaroused by the room miraculously fragmenting around them. “Be sure of that.”

“You’ve poisoned the world against us,” Ben tells him, raising his sword, “against God. It is you who will have to answer for your sins.”

The man before him simply continues to laugh, unaffected even as Ben brandishes his sword, a sword that has slain hundreds before, all innocent and all in the name of God, he had thought. When really, it had all been in the name of the man before him now.

Larger rocks crumble from the temple, crashing behind him. He glances back as he hears the smallest sound of a light, worried voice cry out to him before the archway leading back out into the church is barricaded by a fallen stone.

He turns slowly back towards Palpatine, looking about the crumbling chamber that looks moments away from entombing them both. Impossible of course. Even the force of every single citizen in the city would not be enough to send this underground temple falling to pieces.

But he does not care how it is happening. He cares not if it is the mob, or God, or even Palpatine himself.

“You will accomplish nothing today, boy,” Palpatine cackles, still sitting stagnant atop his throne as the walls fall around him. “But kill me if you must. There are many more who will take my place. But you… You’ve always had sin deep within you. Your fate has been sealed long before you were brought before me.”

His words make Ben hesitate, for just a moment. Wondering if it is wise to take vengeance now, like this. Why continue to cloud his already damaged soul?

But it is not only revenge for himself that he is taking. It is revenge for every soul Palaptine has harmed with his dangerous rule. For Rey, for every innocent killed, every Resistance member, every gypsy and scavenger, every confused and haunted member of the church, even for Hux.

So many lives destroyed. And for what? Ben may never know. But he can make sure it stops.

He runs forward, teeth bared as the walls continue to cave in, the ceiling joining the destruction, crashing down and adding to the entombment that will eventually overwhelm them.

As he gets closer and closer to the hooded figure, he sees only a flash of a ghoulish, satisfied looking smile before the blade of his sword impales through the skull hidden somewhere within the dark cloak.

It takes a moment for Ben to realize his eyes are closed. He opens them slowly to see that his hands are both wound firmly around the handle of his sword as he leans over the throne and the now dead body sitting upon it. He grits his teeth as he yanks the bloodied weapon free of the human head and bit of stone it had lunged through, a streak of blood painting the dark blade and dripping against the throne as Palpatine’s body slumps forward.

It feels as if he is in a dream that he knows he can not escape from. He is not afraid of the looming death that chases him down as he runs and dodges the falling temple, his eyes on the boulders of broken stone gathered by the only entrance. The only thing that persists in his mind, the reason he races desperately to escape the doomed chamber, is the thought of his beautiful scavenger waiting just outside for him.

He has to make it out. He has to see her again. He has to tell her he has made everything alright now, he has freed the church, the city… he’s made it safe for her now.

Something that falls too fast for his eyes to properly see trips him up, causing his body to fall forward and collide against the ground roughly, with almost the same impact as the rest of the rock falling around him.

He is inches away. He crawls forward, his eyes fixed perilously on the ever so small circle of space left between the boulder blocking the archway. The only hope for freedom.

Something crashes over head, falling painfully on top of his body, bringing him into darkness and to a forced stop before the rest of the temple crumbles on top of him.

Chapter Text

Rey is only able to shout out to Ben just once, her footsteps inches away from the archway before something crashes in front of it, blocking it off completely.

The deep recesses of the chamber rumble with a low growl, the sound of stone colliding and toppling muffled behind the boulder that blocks her from running into the temple.

She pushes and pushes against the unmoving rock, calling out Ben’s name as she hears the temple fall in on itself. He doesn’t answer her. She cries out in despair and rage as she shoves her shoulder into the rock over and over again, feeling her skin bruise and her foot crying for relief as she braces herself on it, but she doesn’t stop.

Above her, she hears a flood of roaring voices finally break through the doors that had kept them out. Footsteps pound on the floor above her as she screams and struggles in the darkness, feeling the blackness curl in around her, threatening to bury her in silence.

There’s no way to get in. There has to be another way.

She steps slowly away from the blocked archway before turning and running back up the pitch black corridor, seeing a glimpse of light coming from the church above.

If Finn is here, she knows she can ask him for help. Or anyone from the Resistance, surely they’ve all made it in by now. Or a minister from the church perhaps. They would do what they could to save someone who is trapped below in the crumbling chamber, wouldn’t they?

But when she reaches the top of the hidden stairway and steps into the cathedral, there is nothing but chaos. Hundreds of people, indistinguishable from each other, fighting and killing, some trying to set fire to the sacred shrines that decorate the room, others trying to gather everyone and make a call to peace before being attacked and dragged into the madness.

Rey can only stand, horrified, looking at the death and destruction displayed before her eyes, thinking of Ben trapped wordlessly down below unbeknownst to a single soul here, except her.

Before she can even move, or think to cry out for someone’s help, her body is jerked violently aside, two pairs of hands gripping her arms roughly, painfully digging into her flesh as they pull her forward through the chaos.

“It’s the scavenger whore!” one of the men who has grabbed her announces victoriously. “We will bring her to justice if Notre Dame refuses!”

Rey twists and fights and screams as she is suddenly dragged forward into the horrible mess of violence dancing throughout the church, her body brought inches from the swing of swords and axes that men brandish at each other.

“Let her go!” someone demands from afar, and there are soon gypsies from the Resistance she recognizes charging forward to her rescue.

But the men restraining her are ready, each taking out their own weapons to fight off the oncoming attackers.

Rey screams in horror as two are struck down as they approach, but one of them manages to engage one of the men holding her, letting one of her arms be released.

She almost runs before the second man locks one arm around her middle, the other holding a sword to her neck as he continues on his own hauling her off to wherever he plans on taking her.

Ignoring the searing fire that shoots up her leg, she kicks and stomps on his feet in an attempt to dislodge herself from his grasp, but he only presses the sharp blade of his jagged sword deeper into the skin of her throat until she feels a deep sting followed by hot blood that trickles down her neck.

The cold outside air is ripe on her face as she is dragged outside the church and down the steps.

She tries digging her feet into the ground, but it is a useless endeavor with her injured foot that collides agonizingly with each step as she is pulled along.

Some people begin cheering when they see her, others rush forward to try to help, but are soon overwhelmed by the ones who wish to see her dead.

The other man who had grabbed her before, a large black bearded man with sharp angry eyes she can see now that she gets a better look at him, comes marching forward from the broken church doors, his frightening glare set steadily on her as he comes down the steps.

Her heart beats with fear and her blood goes cold as the man steps closer and closer to her, his large hands locking onto her arm once again, yanking her so roughly forward, she sees stars for a moment.

That is all she remembers, before the sight of two stones being tossed near their direction zip past her line of vision, the third one connecting with a sharp thwack against the back of her head.

* * *

The battle lasts much shorter than anticipated. Many lives were lost, as was expected. But in an unexplainable miracle, the Resistance had won.

It had been a great help to have most of the guards taken out by the falling beams and molten lead when they had all made their first attempt at breaking into the church. And there were no further warriors sent by the church officials to try and stop their attack. Really, the only threat that stood in their way had been the mob of crazed citizens that had broken into the church as well and begun vandalizing and desecrating it in some bizarre combination of pent up anger and perhaps boredom. Both things the Resistance has always been sympathetic towards, but they would not stand for unnecessary violence. So, those who fought them were defeated.

And now, there is nothing but peace. An odd quiet as the cathedral is turned into the sanctuary it was always meant to be, ministers, priests, and Resistance members all working together to tend to the wounded and properly dispose of the dead.

The Resistance has officially taken back the church. Leia already is in one of the many offices once reserved for the cruel leaders that had only hours ago been in the place they’ve comfortably been in for the past twenty years. All the work she has been waiting so long to accomplish is suddenly all being put into place this very night.

Finn feels he still has not fully realized their victory. He wanders almost aimlessly around the church, he nods at and embraces all of his allies that he has seen only in the light of an underground base for so many years, now all of them celebratory in the most grand and beautiful building in Exegol. But he feels empty inside.

He looks everywhere for Rey, his heart sinking after checking each room and not seeing her there, but also feeling a guilty fear go through him when he imagines finally finding her.

He asks around. Most say she ran off once she had been saved from the gallows. She is smart. She would know to get away as quickly as she could. But some say they had seen her run off into the night with none other than Kylo Ren, the knight turned vigilante who has been her lover for some time now.

Finn never took to believing rumors. But he does know that these hours he is spending searching somberly for someone he knows is not here are in vain. Even if she were here, it would be hopeless. He does not love her as he once thought he did. And she had never loved him in the way he had hoped.

After a while, he begins to find it hard to remember her being real at all. Maybe she was just a dream, some beautiful hallucination that fooled them all.

Poe is in one of the downstairs offices, the larger ones, speaking with other Resistance members. Even now, after they’ve accomplished all they’ve spoken of and hoped for for all these years, the man still speaks with incredible conviction and inspiration, his eyes and voice alight with that magic that makes it impossible not to listen.

However, Finn can feel something so much lighter in the air. Something hopeful and bright, something much more akin to the feeling he had whenever he had been in the same room with Poe back when they first had joined the Resistance.

It takes Poe only a few seconds to notice Finn standing in the back corner of the room and quietly listening. After he does, he doesn’t glance up in Finn’s direction again until he has finished with the short meeting and dismissed everyone from the room.

Finn is silent as the Resistance members leave, keeping his head down in shame even before he has stepped forward to speak.

“If you would close the door on your way out, Robert,” he calls to the last man leaving the room.

The sound of the heavy door closing echoes hauntingly through the now very quiet room as the two men stand silent for a long moment.

It takes a painful wrench of courage for Finn to force himself to speak.

“I know how angry you are with me,” he starts, keeping his eyes on the ground still, even after he’s moved out of the safety of his corner. Poe simply strolls back over to the table he had been at, leaning against it casually, as if he were hearing a soldier giving him a basic, unextraordinary update.

He also doesn’t raise his eyes.

“I’m angry with myself too,” he admits. “And… disappointed.”

He moves closer, risking a glance up at where Poe is standing still, his eyes focused on the empty table in front of him. Finn moves his eyes back to stare at nothing, anything else in the otherwise empty room.

“I was unfair to you,” he continues, beginning to feel a bit of relief at speaking these words out loud to him finally. He speaks clearly without any of the mumbled hesitation he feels he has been using with him for so long. “I blamed you for things that weren’t your fault. I was jealous and scared and when I should have been standing with you, I… I wasn’t there.”

Now Poe looks up, but his eyes look unemotional. The look hurts, but Finn forces his head up and keeps his eyes on Poe’s, still seeing the warmth behind his stern gaze.

“I abandoned you,” he confesses, pleading with his eyes for Poe to understand, or forgive him, or say something. “When everything became bad, I failed at the one thing I was supposed to do.”

It feels so good to admit, finally, all these thoughts he had internalized, directing them towards Poe in his mind when really, it has always been himself he was disappointed in.

“I don’t know if you still want me,” he acknowledges, swallowing down the lump in his throat and forcing the tears back from his eyes, determined to keep his voice and expression as steady and sure as he has been so far. “But even if you don’t… I am going to spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to earn your trust again. If I can.”

It’s quiet now, and Finn wants so badly to lower his head again so he doesn’t have to see what Poe’s reaction to his plea for forgiveness will be. He is scared, but not embarrassed. He is glad he said what he said, every word of it. It is the most honest he has felt in a long time.

Poe finally takes a sighing breath, pushing back away from the table and stepping around towards where Finn is standing a few feet away, feeling like he is attempting to keep a respectable distance, as if he were speaking to his commander rather than someone he loves so deeply, it hurts.

But Poe closes the professional space between them, still keeping a safe distance away, but standing closer to him and looking at him with more consideration than he has for some time. The sight and sensation of it sends Finn’s heart beating in startelement at how intense it feels, a feeling he has not experienced in far too long.

“I think we both know you’re not the only one who neglected things,” he says. His voice… God, his voice. Finn had forgotten how sweet and warm it sounds. “I threw myself into something I believed in, that we both believed in, because I wanted to make life better for us. I was fighting for the Resistance Finn, but I did it because I wanted a world where you and I could be happy and free.”

He pauses, looking away briefly as he places his hands on his hips. He looks for a moment like how Finn had just felt, as if he were pushing something more emotional in his voice down in order to continue to speak in a stoic tone.

“What I failed to remember is that you and I are not the same. And you needed something from me during all of this that I didn’t think to give.”

Finn wants to assure him that he doesn’t need Poe to change a thing about himself, that he can learn to be happy no matter what happens, even if the world is burning down.

But he can’t swear to that. Already he has proven that he needs something badly from Poe that may not be so easy for him to give anymore. All he can do now, all they can both do, is try their best to know each other again so that maybe… maybe, Finn thinks, they can begin to move forward again.

“I didn’t give you the care you needed from me when you needed it,” he admits again, his head turning back, his serious eyes looking back into his with a grave expression. “But from the very beginning, you idolized her too much, Finn.”

He doesn’t answer or question the statement. He knows it’s the truth. And he won’t make any excuses. Maybe it was love, just for a moment or two. Or maybe it’s true what they say, and the wondrous scavenger from Jakku does have some sort of… spell that is put over people when they look upon her.

But Finn says none of these things. They don’t matter, even if they might be true.

“You idolized her just as much as everyone else did,” Poe continues as Finn looks into his eyes humbly with acceptance in his heart. “And it almost got everybody killed.”

Chapter Text

Ben awakens to nothing but darkness and the feeling of something impossibly heavy crushing down on his entire body.

A pained groan escapes his throat as he tries to shift himself, but he is pinned face down against the stone floor, his ribs screaming when he attempts to turn over. The only part of him that is free to move is his head and his right hand that is outstretched to something in front of him.

He lifts his head up as much as he can, his eyesight adjusting to see the vague outline of a small tunnel created by the fallen chunks of stone. The tunnel he must have been heading for.

His free hand grabs against the floor and he pushes himself forward with every bit of strength he can muster, feeling his body slide forward ever so slightly with much protest from what must be at least two broken ribs and what feels like a twisted arm and very broken ankle. But he claws his way forward, inch by inch, ignoring the crippling pain that makes his already slanted vision go blurry again.

He calls out for Rey once, and then again, but hears nothing in response. It makes him dig his way forward faster, unsure if he simply can’t hear anything outside the tomb he has been buried in, or if…

Once the upper half of his body is pulled up into the makeshift tunnel, he twists and fights to get his legs loose from the boulders crushed on top of them as he reaches forward and pushes against the rocks toppled in front of the doorway.

He punches and claws and digs, yanking his other arm free and grabbing onto the small edge of the doorway that he can see. He pulls himself forward, pushing his back against the boulder, feeling his skin break and his bones ache in response, but he keeps going until he feels the rock lift just enough to allow his body to slide forward further and further through the small tunnel and out the small hole that leads out of the destroyed temple and into the dark corridor.

He breathes in relief once he tastes fresh oxygen again, rolling onto his back and feeling the countless injuries on him throb excruciatingly.

He knows he’s broken at least a handful of bones, his knuckles are cracked and skinned, and he is bleeding and bruised on what feels like every spot on his body.

But all that he sees is that Rey is nowhere in sight.

Ben lugs himself up, nearly stumbling immediately back down to the ground as he limps forward through the darkness, moving as fast as he can towards the small circle of light peeking in from the cracked open door of the stairway.

He is slow to exit the secret corridor, unsure of what he is about to see.

There is an array of injured people laid out all throughout the cathedral being taken care of by the pastors and leaders of the church. There is blood and broken statues and debris everywhere that everyone is helping to clean out.

The doors are wide open. There is no fighting or distress or anything that had been ripe in the air when he and Rey had both run through here before… how long ago?

He stays close to the wall, moving along discreetly. No one pays him much mind, everyone is focused on their respective tasks, and with how beat to hell he looks, he fits right in with everyone else anyway.

His eyes scan everywhere for Rey, but something horrible in his heart knows she is not here. Everything is right here… everyone is safe. He recognizes fighters from the Resistance, people Hux had ordered him to monitor when they were under suspicion. Here they all are, walking free in the church.

But she isn’t here.

He stumbles out of the doors, seeing that the night has turned to early morning. Sunlight showers upon the towering cathedral, lighting up the entire city with a cheerful, summer morning illumination. As if the horrors of last night had never taken place.

He hardly notices that the bodies once strewn across the steps by his hand have all been removed. All that registers is that Rey is still nowhere to be found.

Ben stumbles further away from the church and deeper into town, a town that is mostly empty, either because everyone is moving towards the security of Notre Dame, or because more of them have been killed than he thought. The few people that do pass him by don’t pay him any mind, only giving him a concerned sideways glance before rushing out of his way as he staggers forward on his path, holding his hand to his bleeding side, or the wound on his leg or the gash in his head.

The world tilts and swirls, and he finds his body slammed up against the wall of a nearby building many times without remembering how he got there. He feels his consciousness waning with every step he takes through endless alleyways, streets, and corners.

He goes in circles, terrified of dying before he finds her. He feels delirious. Hopeless, wondering if he is dead already.

Lifting his head up from where it has collapsed towards his chest, he finds himself squinting up at the Palace of Justice. The menacing building with its jutting towers and uneven rooftops sits stagnant, looking as if it is taunting him. Or perhaps it is merely his hysteria.

Glaring defiantly at the wretched place, he limps off around the building, towards the back where the dungeons are.

There is not much to see behind the building. It is towards the edge of the city that looks out along a rather large piece of land, nothing but rocky ground and large, grand mountains almost matching the grandiose of the architecture within the city’s walls. Other than that, there is merely the presence of a sad looking tree standing alone a few yards away from the dungeons where Ben stands now. A tree that two men look to be heading towards, dragging behind them an unmoving body of a woman whom they drop carelessly to the ground.

Ben stumbles closer, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he watches one of the men kick at the unconscious body on the ground while the other continues on towards the tree, unhooking a long, thick rope from his belt.

“What’s the point of this?” the man now kneeling beside the woman’s body asks as he looks upon her as if she were a crushed insect. “She hasn’t moved for hours, looks dead enough to me. We should leave, those damn rebels are gonna take over the city.”

“The wench was sentenced to hang,” the man with the rope answers back as Ben continues forward, his hand reaching for the sword that has remained sheathed at his hip. “She deserves as much for the destruction she brought to our city.”

The man kneeling beside Rey’s body looks confused at first as he sees the injured man limping towards him. But it doesn’t take him long to rise to his feet and go for his weapon when he sees the black glint of Ben’s sword spark against the sun. It matters not. Ben makes short work of him.

Even the other man who had been preparing the rope at the tree is no challenge for him when he comes charging forward with a sword of his own. Ben may be injured, but his training runs deep. He would not have been entrusted with such a high status if he was unable to take down two common citizens who happened to have gotten ahold of weapons.

After the second man falls to the ground dead with a wound through his chest, Ben turns his head towards the small body lying still against the rocks.

His sword collides against the ground with a clatter before he moves forward, limping towards where Rey is until his ankle finally gives out and he collapses inches from her, crawling forward the rest of the way until he is beside her.

He sits himself up with a grunt of effort, grabbing onto her torso and pulling her towards him, turning her gently over in his arms.

Her eyes are closed, her mouth slightly open. She is completely motionless, her head slumping to the side as he holds her.

Ben leans forward, trying to listen if there is any breath coming from her parted lips. Her chest doesn’t move. And even if she is breathing, he can’t calm his own frantic breath enough or the pounding in his ears to hear clearly.

Feeling something warm on his hand, he moves her slightly aside to see a pool of dark blood covering his palm. He turns her again to see the back of her head bleeding badly.

Before he can feel another wave of panic shoot over him, he hears the smallest cough come from her throat.

He leans her back again, his chest filling with fear and relief as he watches her eyes flutter for just a moment. The two little hazel colored orbs stare up at him for the smallest second, but long enough so that he knows she sees him.

Her lips form into the faintest smile as her eyes close and her body stops moving once again.

Then there is nothing. He waits and waits, rocking back and forth hysterically as a frightening silence lingers in the air.

Ben sits alone, holding her close to his chest as he feels his heart break. It is the most painful thing he ever thought he could feel, as if some part of himself is being slowly torn from within him, a part of his mind and soul.

He wants to punch the ground and scream until his throat is raw, but all he can do is gasp quietly and sob until the wounds in his ribs ripple with pain that feels so unimportant now.

He has failed her again. He had promised and swore over and over again that he would keep her safe, that no one would ever harm her again, that no one would take her away from him. He kept letting her slip away, getting her back just in time until now he has finally lost her for good.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to her, his tears drenching against her hair and the fabric of her torn and dirtied tunic that is a poor imitation of the vibrant white it had once been.

For a long moment, he hates himself. He wishes he had been crushed to death in that temple. He wishes someone had spotted him and killed him back at the church. He wishes he had been left to die all those years ago when he had been starving and freezing in a small shack in Ahch-To so that he had never known any of this.

But after hours and hours of wishing for these impossible things as he lies slumped over her body, he realizes how useless it is.

It won’t bring the woman he loves back. Nor will it help to finally ease all this horrible sorrow that has lived in his heart all these years.

He gathers her delicately in his arms, making sure to rest her head carefully against his shoulder in an attempt to convince himself that she is merely asleep and will wake up for him very soon.

He brings her into the nearest cellar, an underground dungeon of sorts that has been left empty and unlocked. A final resting place that is not ideal or one that he would have ever had in mind, but there is little to choose from. And he wants a place for them where no one will see them, at least not for a long time.

Once they are enclosed in the dirt-filled cellar, hidden safely underground and away from the world, Ben finds himself more at peace than he thought he would be.

All he sees and feels is her. She is all he ever wants to feel.

It is easy to accept death and not fear the cold and emptiness he feels weighing down his body as he lays Rey down gently before lying beside her and pulling her safely into his arms again.

He doesn’t know or care if it is his injuries or something else he feels slowly drawing him away. This world never did seem to suit him. At every turn, it appeared he was never meant to be happy.

Perhaps this world didn’t suit Rey either.

He smiles down at her, his hands brushing away the stray wisps of hair from her face before his eyes fall to her beautiful, small pink lips that he has dreamed of every night since the first time he saw her.

Leaning down, he kisses her softly, missing the warmth that should be there on her skin, but his lips feel as if they fit perfectly with hers nonetheless.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you safe,” he tells her, his forehead touching against hers as they lie together quietly in this morbid resting place made slightly more light by the comfort he feels with the ghost of her presence. “I love you, Rey. And I am never leaving your side again.”

He hugs her tightly against him as his eyes close, the wavering pain of his injuries beginning to fade away as everything begins to feel lighter, a peaceful sleep creeping over him, soothing his pain.

“I’m more than happy to stay with you, my love,” he speaks gently, the sound of his voice sounding far away in his own ears. Dying for her does not feel like death. It feels like one of the few things he may have done right in his life.

Images of the first time he’d seen her dance flood his senses, easing him gently into sleep, his body locked forever in an embrace with hers as they both rest peacefully and alone for now in their abandoned tomb.

* * *

It is late into the evening before Leia can get a moment completely to herself in the large cathedral. It is almost jarring to have, at least a minute or two, of complete silence with not a single soul bursting in and out of the room, asking for orders or clarification on how to proceed with their new and very recently acquired line of power.

It has been perhaps the quickest and most confusing day for all of them. No one had predicted the victory would come to them like this. Yes, they had lost many, but not nearly as much as they were supposed to lose, as Leia had always thought they would lose. But with the unexpected help, and finding the archdeacon and so-called “prophet” already dead before they could even be confronted, the transition of power had been undeniably smooth.

Leia finds herself now wandering about the peaceful confines of the bell tower, a place where very few seem to want to venture to. She supposed not many people would ever think that beauty would reside in such an odd place, at least not the same beauty that shines out from the outside of the grand tower where the glorious bells ring out over the land. But she finds more wonder and tranquility in the isolated tower than perhaps any other corner of the famed church.

She recalls how enamored she had been all those years ago when her eyes had first laid upon the beautiful structure. The feeling it had given her when she had thought of her young, lonely son back home. The hope that sending him here would fill the void in his life that had been put there by her.

It had only been so many years after she had sent him here to be educated that she had felt the deep sting of regret. All she had done in every moment of his life was push him away. It took her far too long to be able to admit that to herself. But she could not help the painful memories Ben Solo had brought of her husband who was taken from her only months before their son was born. Being around someone who looked and acted so much like him, even at only a few months old, had been unbearable. So she had sent him away the moment he was old enough.

Tears fill her eyes and a horrible ache courses through her heart as she steps out onto a nearby balcony, looking up at the darkening sky. Thinking about some small moment, long ago, when she had been happy. When a peaceful life with her husband and child had been just within reach. She hardly even feels like the same woman she was then.

She knows she perhaps had a hand in creating Kylo Ren by abandoning her son. But she always kept hope in her heart that her son would find himself and choose the right path. And it appears, at the end, he did.

She can feel it in her heart that he is dead. Not only because the entire church has been searched and he is nowhere to be seen. But maybe because… the world seems a little less bright. Just when things are supposed to be going right for once, it feels as if something has been stolen from her.

Leia had thought there could be nothing more to lose after her husband had died, but if there is one thing that all of this has taught her, it is that there is always something worth holding onto. Things you won’t realize how much you need until they are gone.

She places her hands on the cool stone ledge, looking down upon the unnaturally still city below, hoping that she can do right by all of this. That people won’t ever again have to know such suffering as all that has happened in the past.

Maybe… just maybe, that small, but important bit of healing can make up for her mistakes.

* * *

Ben feels as if he is sleeping on a cloud. He can’t feel anything beneath him, as if his body is comfortably suspended in midair, a wonderful breeze blowing through his hair and across his face.

Nothing hurts like it did before. He can’t even remember what had been hurting him. Was he injured? How did he end up here? Where was he when…

A hand touches his face. A light touch that feels like silk on his skin.

His eyes open to a pair of the most beautiful eyes he’s ever seen. And a stunning face smiling down at him.

He turns his head into Rey’s touch, a content smile painting lightly upon his lips as he looks at her angelic face framed by the magnificent light shining down behind her.

“You can wake up now, my love,” her lovely voice rings out softly in his ears.

His eyes narrow in confusion as he senses something beneath him, something cool and soft. Then Rey’s hand moves from his face, both of her hands circling around his arms to pull him forward from whatever he’s lying against.

Sitting up, he feels the warm glint of sun shining refreshingly on his face. He looks up to see a gorgeous sky colored deep pink and gold. He looks down to see he had been lying on incredibly soft green grass that feels as delicate as air beneath his palms. His eyes trail up to look at the rest of his surroundings.

His mouth falls open slightly as he sees the most breathtaking open field of bright green grass, surrounded by lush trees that stand against the golden sunset.

He looks back to Rey who is sitting comfortably in the grass beside him. Her hair is up in the usually funny style she always has it in, only it looks almost inhumanly perfect. Not a strand of hair is out of place and thin strings of glimmering pearls curl all throughout it.

She is dressed in a long, iridescent colored gown that hugs tightly around her, looking almost as if it fades into their surroundings, as if it were made out of the clouds.

“Where are we?” he asks her, shaking his head in wonder. His voice sounds strange. Relaxed.

She shrugs, looking around them at the mesmerizing place.

“Wherever we want to be,” she answers easily, as if it doesn’t worry her at all. And to his surprise, Ben finds he isn’t worried either.

Rey turns back to face him, smiling brightly again as she reaches for his hands. He takes them eagerly and she pulls him to his feet, her gown floating out gracefully around her.

He looks at her for a moment, at her familiar face and the sparkle in her eyes that still doesn’t fail to send his heart pattering madly in his chest. Unable to stand it for a moment longer, he reaches forward and pulls her body close to his, his arms encircling her completely as he breathes a heavy sigh of relief, relishing in the beautiful feeling that is somehow swarming over both of them, keeping them at peace.

He pulls away from her only enough to look down at her face before leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers.

It is the greatest sensation he has ever experienced. It’s as if he can feel her every thought and feeling just by holding her like this. Her hands reach up to run along his back and his neck as he touches the bare skin of her back.

She smiles against his lips as she brushes her hands through his hair.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he breathes, leaning back to stare at her with wide, apologetic eyes. "I’m so sorry…”

He can’t remember what he is sorry for. Something horrible he had done to her… but how? They’re both so happy now.

She still smiles at him, her hands brushing along his face.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she tells him, her eyes gazing down briefly before looking back up at him with sincerity. “You’ve always had a good heart, Ben. I knew it the moment I saw you.”

He does remember that. The awed look she had given him after looking into his eyes for the first time. He remembers how confused he had felt that she could look at him like that.

That’s all he can remember. Good things. Memories of feeling excited and in love and truly happy. There is no pain or sadness or evil. None that he can recall. Just calmness.

Ben looks around again, his hands locking around Rey’s once more.

“What do we do now?” he questions, laughing a bit in awe. She laughs too, looking out towards the sea of bright green trees that look as if they go on forever.

“We should go find out,” she offers, her eyes filling with longing and her voice lowered in consideration. “I’ve always wanted to visit a forest.”

He smiles at her, his hand holding hers tightly as they both turn towards the trees. Towards another life, excited to embrace their new adventure.