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Blood drips slowly down the silver of his sharpened blade, the congealing crimson distasteful to his senses proof of his part in the covenant completed. Kylo Ren, inheritor of the Unseelie Court, appears untroubled in his lair of ancient trees and cool bracken, the barest hint of moonlight peeking through the crowded canopy like a second set of pinprick stars, but there is a rolling unease of change inside his chest and he does not believe he wishes it to depart. So much is stagnant for immortals such as he - even for an immortal such as he who has traveled far and forced his destiny to break, forced the bonds of family to break, forced the bonds of master and student to break, forced his own path in this world of frivolous traitors. Kylo Ren has been alone for a millenia and yet…
A ripple happened when the woman appeared, ragged and dirty, heavy humid breaths purging and receding from her oh so mortal collection of skin and bone. She was not meant to survive her journey, or so the wind had whispered to him the moment mortal flesh had stumbled upon his wood. Hungry, thin, despairing, beaten - Kylo Ren had paid little attention to the numerous descriptors - She will not last, Your Highness. She will not make the pool. And so the Prince had remained as he had always remained, until a face and body had appeared, a gasp of unmitigated gratefulness cutting through the stillness of bird and beetle before the woman threw herself face first into his water.
He let his rage simmer, disgust curling his lip at the gulping, sloshing animal sounds, the sweat and spit dribbling down features so much darker than his own winter visage, and yet...
There was a violet blush painted across one cheek, spots of yellow on the outer edge while her lower lip was split red on the corner. It wasn’t the only place on her person Kylo Ren could smell blood. Her hands looked torn, on the knuckles, on her fingers, red washed away and swirling in his pool. His solitude had been disturbed by a creature who should not have lived through her frantic rush through his domain. He should attack, all common decency called for death to stumble upon a fae lord - the Unseelie were no magnanimous sprites granting benedictions to wayward sacks of meat - but a ripple happened when she appeared and Kylo Ren’s silver sword remained sheathed.
“This is not your home, mortal.”
The woman’s eyes had flashed, her body jerked as if pulled on a string at the sound of his reverberating speech, but too exhausted to rise as she simply pulled her thin limbs in closer to her vagabond coverings. It was not fear he sensed, but anticipation. He could not fathom it for true - she had expected him. He. Skywalker’s Bane, Destroyer of the House of Snoke and Knights of Midnight, Inheritor of the Unseelie Court. Prince in title and blood. Predicted by this mortal woman who...who carried iron on her person!
“You dare!” He separated from rock and shadow, standing before her and the hagride waters of his pool in full regalia, black worm silks and spider-spun vambraces, horn of deer and elk marching across the wide expanse of his cloaked shoulders and the earned silver sword of Vader at his hip. Lips peeled back and fangs were revealed. “You dare bring iron into my domain!”
Another huff of breath and the woman was pulling at a hempen line tied round her waist, a dangling iron nail pulled forth and suddenly hanging in the darkest sort of promise over his pool. His nostrils flared and fangs retreated.
“I have no home. And yes! I do dare.” Her weakened body fought to lift itself to seating but her voice was all command, sure and strong and entirely unworthy to be heard in his surroundings. “I seek a boon from the keeper of this forest. I seek the service of the monster, Kylo Ren. Are you him?”
“Yes. I am.” Monster. There was no other word to describe all he had done and all he imagined left for him to do in the enormity of his existence but to hear it from the woman’s mouth was displeasing. She was nothing, a speck of traversed eons on his leather soles, and yet…
“Who gave you this Prince’s name?”
She swallowed and the delicate skin of her eyelids briefly fluttered. She was relieved amidst her desperation. “The witch before they stoned her. Maz of the Elm. I fed on her stories when not chained to my master’s smithy.” Her hovering arm trembled but the woman did not falter and the nail hung high to Kylo Ren’s sight. Maz of the Elm? He could recall a gathering of huts within walking distance of her great tree. Time would have seen it expand into a village. This woman had known the old sorceress? Kylo Ren’s hand flexed upon his gleaming hilt, his thoughts at the crone’s death dissatisfying. She had grown weak and foolish to let mongrels get the best of her. Lies! Kylo Ren stepped forward, his movements slow with his own gravitas but the woman’s limb jerked and the iron danced.
“I’ll do it! You will grant me a boon or I will poison this water, I will drive you from your own domain!” An expulsion left her chest, a wracking cough that had her wincing. Her earth brown eyes still flashed rebellion as her tone lowered, as Kylo Ren lowered himself to the water’s edge. “You will grant me a boon or I will poison this water and await your destruction, for I will ne’er return from whence I came.” Another cough. “I won’t go back. I cannot.”
A raven’s wing of an eyebrow rose at the woman’s declaration but he would have his proof. She had already contaminated his pool; though invisible to the eye, her blood still swirled within the crystal clear depths. Creature’s manipulated, spoke falsities and begged and simpered. Blood will out. He slipped a hand into the wet and brought a palmful to his own plush mouth, his gaze never leaving the woman and her trembling grip. “ We will see what you can and cannot do.”
And the world around him rippled once more. And the woman’s blood slid like thickened honey down his princely throat. And it was as if he had never known hunger sated til this moment as her existence blossomed upon his tongue.
Tears. Years of tears without ceasing, without comfort, whipped by in a blink in his immortal mind until her silence was all that was acceptable. She was imprinted with survival, she sheltered on roughspun and grass and soot. Her hands were trained for intricacy and youth was snatched away to be replaced by defiant shoulders and self-taught sharp knees. Her face knew the backs of many hands, and in the running images of her life Kylo Ren’s rage amplified. She had known Maz of the Elm, had stolen moments with the only woman to show her kindness, who had not pushed her from the threshold but welcomed, always welcomed. She had served those who participated in Maz of the Elm’s death, had listened to crude laughter and self righteousness as a golden ball of fury expanded in her own gullet. As hot as his own was cold. As alive as his own. Her heart beat fast and free as only -
Kylo Ren gasped.
Blood will out.
This mortal was more than she appeared.
This mortal was more than she knew.
Her heart beat fast and free as only a fae’s heart could do. Mortal, and yet...
“What boon would you demand, friend to the once Maz of the Elm?”
“Revenge!” It burst forth without wait but the second came softer. “Safety. My master was set to see me wed but it was all an exchange of coin. He is an evil man.” Without a doubt. Kylo Ren had seen it all. “At my refusal he hit me. I - I couldn’t let him. Not again. I struck him down with his own tools, stole his goods,” the hemp wrapped nail was shaken once again, “and fled.”
Kylo Ren stood and with silent grace unsheathed his silver sword.
“You demand a life for a life.”
The woman chuckled humourlessly.
“I demand many lives. I won’t be safe until all of them are dead.”
“Then it is not a boon but a covenant. One between thine and mine.” His deathshead steps walked the curve of his pool, already knowing his future actions, already seeing blood spilt, already hearing screaming, gaping maws. “One service for another.” Her chin kicked up and the woman was now truly sitting towards him, no longer a waif half twisting on the moss. The nail was dropped a hairsbreadth from the water.
“I’ll not barter with you, demon, nor will I trade one servitude for another. Chains are chains and I have thrown mine aside. I will see this world - !” And now her mortal gaze did mist over, “I will breathe fresh air and I will force my own destiny.”
Oh. Oh.
“A year,” he purred, a sound unthinkable, unheard of in these woods for centuries and immediately he wished it back. “‘Tisn’t a small favour you ask of your Prince.”
“A day!” she spat, angry though resigned. “I have no prince and you’ll have no more from me than the time between two sunrises. Now will you hold true?”
In a blink there was a pigskin pouch lain upon her knee.
“Place your iron inside and give it me,” Kylo Ren intoned. “Then our covenant will begin.”
She held his gaze, waiting for the trick and seeming to call his bluff by untying the rope wrapped round her waist and depositing it nail and all inside the smooth flaps of the pouch. She tossed it in his direction, shivering as it disappeared and again when realization and horror hit that they were no longer by the pool. It was a deeper part of the woods. Colder. Darker.
“You’ll play me false - !”
“Rest, woman!” Kylo Ren overrode her sputtered objections with a growl, cates appearing at her feet. “Eat. Drink. I’ll not trust you near my pool but your safety will be assured.”
Blood has now been spilled in rivulets and Kylo Ren sits beneath his canopy of old growth watching the woman sleep inside the divot of earth he has made to conceal her fragile mortal form and fiery fae heart. It is unnatural and dreamless but her brow is unfurrowed and her body is at ease, her deprivation having encouraged her to consume what Maz of the Elm would never have touched. The woman will heal though, and Kylo Ren will ponder the change within his chest.
“My name is Rey,” she had stated firmly, the first peach already within her grasp.
Kylo Ren had known this but to hear her say it was better. “Rey of whom?”
“Just Rey.” The peach was bitten, sucked, and juiced rolled down her chin. “There’s no claim upon me now. There never will be again. Thanks to our...covenant.” Kylo Ren had nodded, once, had wanted to hold her jaw as she swallowed the sweet fruit, had inexplicably wanted to offer her more and drink the run-off from her fingers. “And - and just one day. That is the bargain.” Another nod as Kylo Ren had turned, ready to unleash an unknown violence.
“Only the time between two sunrises. ‘Tis what we agreed.”
He pulls a sheet of blue lobelias over her sleeping head, the viscous blood of her enemies clinging to wayward grass and moisture covered ferns as his silver sword swings lightly from his free hand, and yet...
There is a peace.
And an infinite amount of time between two sunrises.