[ Like a wild animal — starved for too long and made more feral for it — she can sense him pace restlessly at the threshold of their minds. The Force recoils from it, a shrieking klaxon in her mind, even as it tentacles outward toward him. A traitorous parasite, uncertain if it means to restore balance through a peace that has shattered or balance it with their demise.
Rey winces with it, flinches from it. The warmth it promises, pouring back into her, is worse than any ringing in her skull — a special brand of cruelty after all that she has suffered. A reminder of what might have been.
At the very least, it offers her strength to zip through the crowd until there is nowhere to go but endless dunes. It's territory she knows better, a viper in its den. That has to be as much an advantage as the burst of power that surges through her, buzzing through her nerve-endings with an acute awareness. Returned to her, as Kylo Ren has.
She had never asked for either.
Swiveling her gaze over her shoulder, she turns to reach out toward the advancing troopers that have caught her scent. The grit of her snarling teeth is concealed in the dark shadow of her cloak as her fingers curl, all three choking for breath as they struggle, fingers clawing at their armor as if it might allow them to fight for oxygen.
Finn had been among them. There could have been others like him — lost, afraid, unable to know any other life. Now, all she can see is the embodiment of a prison waiting for her, his troops come to steal the only thing she has left in her possession: herself, and the freedom she has secured. ]
๐ฆ๐ฆ๐ฆ
Rey winces with it, flinches from it. The warmth it promises, pouring back into her, is worse than any ringing in her skull — a special brand of cruelty after all that she has suffered. A reminder of what might have been.
At the very least, it offers her strength to zip through the crowd until there is nowhere to go but endless dunes. It's territory she knows better, a viper in its den. That has to be as much an advantage as the burst of power that surges through her, buzzing through her nerve-endings with an acute awareness. Returned to her, as Kylo Ren has.
She had never asked for either.
Swiveling her gaze over her shoulder, she turns to reach out toward the advancing troopers that have caught her scent. The grit of her snarling teeth is concealed in the dark shadow of her cloak as her fingers curl, all three choking for breath as they struggle, fingers clawing at their armor as if it might allow them to fight for oxygen.
Finn had been among them. There could have been others like him — lost, afraid, unable to know any other life. Now, all she can see is the embodiment of a prison waiting for her, his troops come to steal the only thing she has left in her possession: herself, and the freedom she has secured. ]