[ he doesn't mean it to hurt her, of course, but it does. it cuts like a knife. forces her to examine the nature of that friendship in the first place — that it had never been about her, but about poe needing to protect something. and if she doesn't need protecting … or further, doesn't want that protection, then she is … what? nothing to him too.
it's not that she hadn't gotten her friend hurt. it's that she'd never had him as a friend at all. just rey on her shit again, assigning significance to people who couldn't give a damn about her. in so many ways she remains that desperate, lonely child on jakku watching the skies and waiting for her parents to come back, assuming that she must mean something to them.
she blinks and the tears fall, but no new ones well up to replace them. she stares at him for a silent moment, processing this. it makes a terrible kind of sense, ben's interpretation. she has no reasonable counter.
nothing lost, then. at least there shouldn't be. it shouldn't feel like she failed. like she finally had something she'd wanted for so long and sabotaged it through her own efforts because it was never real to begin with.
that leaves only the other thing. the real reason she can't stay here. the real reason he'd never allow her to, if he knew. ]
He thinks I'm a monster. [ he hadn't said it, but the fear in her chest is real and present and overflowing. and with it, doubt. she's not sure he's wrong. ] He thinks we tortured that woman.
[ she closes her hand in a fist around the edge of her kimono skirt where it brushes up against her knees. she stares for a long moment's silence at ben, clearly on the verge of something else, but not sure she wants to say it. not sure how to. it's that fear again. growing bigger, stronger. she doesn't know anymore. ]
no subject
it's not that she hadn't gotten her friend hurt. it's that she'd never had him as a friend at all. just rey on her shit again, assigning significance to people who couldn't give a damn about her. in so many ways she remains that desperate, lonely child on jakku watching the skies and waiting for her parents to come back, assuming that she must mean something to them.
she blinks and the tears fall, but no new ones well up to replace them. she stares at him for a silent moment, processing this. it makes a terrible kind of sense, ben's interpretation. she has no reasonable counter.
nothing lost, then. at least there shouldn't be. it shouldn't feel like she failed. like she finally had something she'd wanted for so long and sabotaged it through her own efforts because it was never real to begin with.
that leaves only the other thing. the real reason she can't stay here. the real reason he'd never allow her to, if he knew. ]
He thinks I'm a monster. [ he hadn't said it, but the fear in her chest is real and present and overflowing. and with it, doubt. she's not sure he's wrong. ] He thinks we tortured that woman.
[ she closes her hand in a fist around the edge of her kimono skirt where it brushes up against her knees. she stares for a long moment's silence at ben, clearly on the verge of something else, but not sure she wants to say it. not sure how to. it's that fear again. growing bigger, stronger. she doesn't know anymore. ]
Did we?