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She represses a scream as the boulder falls below her. Tangling her fingers in her hair, she looks to her master. “What am I doing wrong?” she hisses. Rey stands on a ledge, cut off from the rest of the world with her teacher, Luke Skywalker. The two have been in the same training exercise since daybreak.
“Try it again, concentrate, feel the force around you,” Luke calmly speaks. “Again,” for a split second she wants to aim the huge rock at him.
Below the ledge they stand on, a boulder rests; which to continue completing her training, she must move to stand behind Luke. The padawan lifts both arms and reaches out to the rock, calling to it. The object of her desire rises and follows her command, flying two feet before falling towards the Earth below it.
“Use the force, close your eyes and let it guide you.”
Rey grits her teeth and tries again, this time blind. She remembers the waves pulling and pushing at her. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, “ I want you by my side.” Her eyes snap open at his voice and her grip is lost.
“Close, again.”
She opens her mouth to explain that it was not her fault but that would mean explaining her visions and that is the last thing she needs. The padawan’s eyes close and she feels an invisible rope tied to her move the huge mass. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, “ You are everything that the First Order needs.” This time the voice is accompanied by his face, his gaze resting solely on her.
Rey shamefully drops her guard once again and the boulder falls. “I’m sorry,” she bites her lip, “it’s too much I just-” Tears of frustration begin to well up in her eyes and she fights to keep them there.
“Why don’t we take a short break. Spend a few minutes in meditation and ask yourself what the force is pulling you towards. We will reflect on this experience as soon as you complete your task,” her master says, waving his hand and moving the rock back to his starting place.
She is still in awe of how much he can do with so little effort. Truly a master , she regards. Rey turns from their work site and walks into the forest of Yavin Four, the stronghold Skywalker has temporarily relocated them to. This moon is the extent of the traveling; after Rey’s basic training on their previous aquatic home was complete, her master felt it logical to move to another terrain to learn from. Yavin Four possesses “a beautiful forest atmosphere with still enough ruins to feel the wake of force sensitivity trails” and is "personally close to home” claims Master Skywalker.
Something Rey has found she enjoys is climbing trees, she excels at supporting herself and balancing her body amongst the branches. It’s peaceful. The padawan needs more peaceful moments in her life.
Within the span of a few moments, Rey’s about twenty feet in air and leaning against the skeleton of a rooted sapling. Her mind is racing with his voice, everything he has ever said to her now becoming one big blur. The memories now pressed at the top of her brain, the ex-scavenger knows this must mean something.
She’s called to him before, but it was accidental, now she feels like the force is telling her to. Hey, she says to herself, if that’s what Master Skywalker wants. Rey closes her eyes, regulates her breath and waits to be taken to her dream world.
Of course it’s the snowy forest. Rey’s no longer enjoying the lush greenlands of the Yavin Four trees, but grimacing at the snow burning on her skin. She’s still in a tree. “Ben?” she whispers, “wait, there’s no reason to whisper here." Her voice rings louder, "Ben?” echoing through the woodlands. “Be-!” a scream escapes from her lips as the branch supporting her becomes unreasonably weak and she’s falling through the air. Her body races towards the ice awaiting her, she scrunches her face up to face the impact. An impact never comes.
Rey opens her eyes to see she is still, the world around her still falling without her. “Truly Skywalker’s apprentice indeed” his voice pierces the night.
“Let go of me, please,” she huffs and he releases his grip. Kylo Ren, of course, still catches her at the bottom of her descent.
“What’s on your mind?” he asks with a smirk on his face, still clinging to her body in his arms.
Rey at first struggles to squirm away from his grasp on her, but stops halfway, realizing it is snowing and below freezing and his body is warm. She plays it off cool. “I was training and thought I felt your presence so I meditated and came here. I was curious how to bring you here too,” Rey shrugs.
The smirk doesn’t leave Ren’s face as he responds, “I was doing important things when I felt your force signature beckoning and I… was going to ignore it but then I felt that you were in danger because you are incapable of almost everything.”
Rey rolls her eyes, “why were you avoiding me? Did I hurt your darling pride?”
Her feet are suddenly on the ground again as he pushes her out of his arms, “why must you ask such foolish questions?” The Knight of Ren’s expression darkens.
The young girl scoffs and turns her back to the man standing opposite of her, “if you didn’t want to come then I don't understand why you did.”
“Why did you reach out to me?” he keeps the distance vast between them. At least in this moment.
“I felt you amidst my training and I couldn’t- Your signature was too strong for me to concentrate so I needed to get you out of my head,” when she turns he has moved and is a hair’s breadth away from her. “I don’t understand how I can sense you so strongly,” Rey mutters under her breath.
Kylo feels his throat go dry at the mere sight of her lips moving, especially when she is speaking about them. The Knight knows the two are connected, the same force that courses through his veins is the same invisible natures that holds her together. His uncle’s padawan doesn’t understand, and she won’t until she is further in her training, but he knows they are tied together with a bond that has not been seen since before the fall of the Jedi Order. Ren has begun to recognize her force signature better than he can even feel out his. This realm she creates for them, it is all a manifestation of his power.
Still, he wishes he could physically touch her. She could turn his cold reality into something warmer. “The force is a powerful thing, even the wisest of elders, even your master can not fully grasp it,” the man trails off before returning his gaze to her, “You thought of me?” Rey can see a spark pass through Ben’s eyes.
“If you have nothing to say then I should return to my training,” Rey shifts from under his stare, beginning to walk away from him.
“Rey, wait-” Ben catches her elbow in his hand and hold her firmly to the spot. His eyes are crystal clear and filled with her at the exact same time. “I need to warn you,” the son of the Resistance General draws her in, pulling Rey flush against him. Rey tries to force the words out of her mouth but they are caught at her lips.
“You’re going to want to run,” he whispers right before dropping a handful of snow onto her head.
Rey gaps loudly at the sensation of the frozen liquid now hitting her skin and shrieks, “Ben!” Ben Solo smirks, ducking as she balls the snow below her feet together and throws it at him. “Take that!” she yells, grabbing as much of the material as she can and uses her force abilities to aim directly at him.
Ben has a plan, he’s dodging behind trees as he builds up his own battery of ammunition. The padawan charges his secret base, grabbing onto a low tree branch to swing her feet into his stomach. The boy falls, but not without aiming once more directly at her face, it’s a perfect hit. Rey sputters backwards and wipes the ice from her cheeks, now pattering him as hard as she can with the leftover snow.
Ben raises his hand and waves it away from his body to her and the melting balls of ice headed towards him follow. Rey loses her balance as the projectiles pelt her.
“Quite a kick you pack there,” Ben murmurs as he crawls over to where she is lying.
“Quite an arm you’ve got,” a soft smile dancing on her lips
The Knight now leans over her, their noses close to touching. Rey presses one hand to the ground, praying he won’t notice, her other hand flies to his cheek as she dimly whispers, “Ben, if you think I will ever surrender to you,” she digs her hand into the snow, with her other pulling his robe towards her, "you're wrong". Ren barely has time to move as freezing snow is dropped in between his clothes and his chest. Rey flips him over and takes off running.
Ben curses loudly, his chest on fire. She never fails to impress him, his heart skips a beat just thinking about how gifted she is. “Rey!” his low groan of discomfort echoes through the trees and Rey snickers at her victory.
The ex-scavenger is kneeling behind a fallen trunk, her small fits of laughter betraying her stealth. Rey jumps at the sound of a lightsaber cracking the log before her in half, Ben stands tall, “you’ll pay for that.”
Snowballs begin to fly straight at the poor girl, who ducks and dodges to the best of her ability. Rey spins out of an attack, her footwork leading her straight into his welcoming arms, her back to his chest. “Not bad,” he approves, “but, you forgot one of the key aspects to winning a fight.”
“What’s that?”
Snow piles into the back of Rey’s tunic, more than she shoved into his. “Use your opponent’s weakness to your benefit,” Ben presses a quick kiss onto her cheek and spins her out of the grasp. Rey shrieks and pats her back down, he laughs with such mirth that it almost spreads into his eyes.
“Your training has done you well,” Kylo nods to her. “However,” he pauses, “I could do better. Rey, can’t you feel it? I know you can, I sensed it the first time we met. You and I are bound together by fate and the force. Give me your location, come to me, and we will become so great that even Snoke will not stand in our way.”
Kylo Ren reaches for Rey’s hand, “Rey, join me. I want you, I need you,” she hates herself for entwining their fingers, “by my side.” Even if she barely skims the most shallow parts of his mind, all she can find is destruction. Power overwhelming, massacres, pain, loss, fear, darkness. He realizes what she’s doing and fixes his gaze stronger into her eyes. Her pulse is beating faster and faster, images of what they could be in galaxy pouring through her mind, they’re powerful and happy and unafraid of whoever may oppose them. They serve well together and she feels more deeply for him than any other person in this life. He kisses her every chance he gets, losing his mind the first time they meet again in reality.
“I won’t let them tear us apart, you will be my apprentice and eventually even a Knight of Ren, my equal, my counterpart, my lo-”
The earth moans and begins to quake beneath them. The deaf tones of the forest are shattered as trees crumble into the breaking earth. Rey seizes up, she’s lived this before. A crack breaks under Ren’s feet and he stumbles backwards away from her. “Ben!” she calls out to him.
This world is the force within her, he once said, created by her. Just as her resolve began to fall, the earth did too. Just as her fantasies demanded consequences, her mind did too. The dirt and core between the two fall down into a pit Rey can not see the end of. A huge gap separates the padawan and apprentice. This is where their battle ended last time.
“Jump!” Ben yells, concern playing over all his features, “I’ll catch you!”
“It has to be at least fifteen feet wide!” Rey gasps as the earth all around her falls, leaving her no other options but to follow his commands.
Rey sprinys with all her strength, jumping at the very last moment, snow still flying into her hair, the winter air whipping against her face. She’s made it five feet when she begins to feel herself descending, falling, being pulled into an abyss.
Ben pushes out his arms and reaches for her. She’s suspended above the darkness below. Next she’s flying, the rest of the divide rushing below her as she’s pulled into strong, long arms. “You’re safe,” he mumbles, half for himself, mostly for himself, “I’m not letting you go.”
Rey doesn’t know what the rules of death are in her force realm, but she does know that she could’ve just died has this been the real world. With these thoughts and adrenaline pumping through her blood, the young woman reaches up and kisses the man holding her.
Ren doesn’t fully comprehend what’s happened until it’s over, until she is moving away from his lips and pleading with his eyes. He moves quickly, holding her tighter, pulling her closer, kissing her skin, a hand through her hair, his lips on hers, it’s a blur for the both of them. The world around them settles and they’re now standing in a field with a waterfall not too far away. Rey’s arms move from behind his neck to his chest, and wow, he’s muscular. His hands are so large compared to her smaller frame, she has her fair share of muscle too though, he notices.
Their kiss deepens and there is no way he’ll let her get away from him now, now that he knows she wants this, she wants him with her and as much as he does. Ben breaks them apart for air and she leans her head against his chest, his arms wrap around her waist and pull her closer, as close as possible.
“Ben,” she barely whispers, still out of breath.
“My love,” Ben runs a hand down her hair, soothing her better than any other meditation technique has.
Her next words sting. Rey knows what she wants and the difference when contrasted to what she needs. Her soul holds little to no room for darkness, for the power caused by pain and hurt that Ren speaks so eagerly about. She is clothed in light, in abundance of hope and love. She's been claimed by the light side of the force since before she was born, and if he pulls her from that, the universe's balance would never be the same.
“I will not join you,” her words cause a tear to run down her cheek, her fantasies of everything Kylo could teach her are torn.
Ben doesn’t respond, he instead drops his head onto the top of hers, breathing her in. “Rey,” his words are barely audible due to the lack of clarity, “please do not call me here again.” The young woman knows the man is Ben for sure, Kylo Ren doesn’t say please. It tears at her heart more to know that even Ben will not sacrifice their alignments just to see her.
“Okay,” Rey’s voice cracks and she tries to break their embrace but his arms will not relent. “Ben, let me go,” she pleads.
“Stay,” he says so quietly that he can barely hear himself.
The ex-scavengers presses a hand to his face, “when we meet again on the battlefield I will not hesitate,” she states, begging for his approval. Ben simply catches her lips in a lingering kiss, yet pulls away all too soon. He releases her from his grasp and begins to fade away as he moves from her; His reality self is pulling him away from their connection.
“I wouldn't expect anything less than that," the man says, Rey can almost see the cracks of light behind his eyes dancing.
When Kylo Ren awakes from his meditation, his lightsaber flies open to his hand and leaves it’s mark frantically against the panelled walls behind him. He roars with fire in his belly, his eyes exposing a raging beast. The Knight of Ren slashes back and forth, in every direction until finally he can actually breathe. He longs for her arms, for her hands, her lips, her hair, for her. And not even her denial will stop him from getting what he wants.
When Rey awakens from her meditation, she’s still in a tree. Climbing down carefully she sees her master sitting by their makeshift campsite. “How long was I gone?” she asks, as if nothing has happened.
“An hour,” Luke opens his eyes and motions to the same place they left off, “are you ready?”
Within the next week she goes as far as to lift the Falcon successfully. He doesn't pull her focus to him, doesn't lash out against her, he's quiet. His silence is like having shards of a broken mirror cut her arms raw, but she stay quiet too. Rey's heart hurts at night, alone in her thoughts. She visits the pasture they stood in happily, their ghosts gliding around her mind.They're smiling, fits of laughter, fingers entwined, skin on skin. If he feels this, Rey will never forgive him.
Lightspeed away, Ben Solo sits on the bed in his quarters, a waterfall echos through his memory. The grass at their feet. She lets her hair down and he runs his fingers through it. He'll never forgive her.