sololoquy | open post

Then you'll have no trouble staying out of my way while I find the rebels they're harboring.

[ She stalks around him, her chin nearly brushing his shoulder as she does with how close she gets as she seethes the words out. She hasn't come for him. Snoke would not forgive a second offense so close to the first. If she allows him to distract her, the rebellion will escape, and then —

And then it will have all been for nothing. ]

Ryloth was a neutral system. But they've made a grievous mistake.

No trouble at all.

[He is confident enough that she won't find the base without a guide. Surely the Resistance had already been alerted of Kira's arrival. And besides, did she think she was going to walk out with a laser sword and face down the whole Resistance?

Ben exhales out of his nose and heads back toward the cantina.]

You're wasting your time, though. Ryloth's too poor to take sides -- no offense.

[He replies to the 10 glares he gets upon that deceleration, holding his hands up.]

I did not ask for your opinion on tactics.

[ This, she delivers coolly, without looking back at him. For their part the twi'leks don't seem to know what to do about the fact that she has completely disregarded their threats and efforts to keep her off their planet. It leaves them open for the small contingent of stormtroopers who spill out of the shuttle in her wake to seize their weapons by force, though there are only three of them. ]

As you've said, it's not your area of expertise; though you seem to be highly experienced in giving your opinion where it isn't welcome.

[ She pushes the door of the cantina open and scopes around it, first with her eyes, and then by reaching out through the Force. It would clear her mind, tell her if there was something she was missing. The entire cantina panics upon seeing her. There are only a few here at this time of day, of course, but Kira pays them no mind. They're only a distraction, an irritation. ]

[Give him a second, he's trying to figure out how they all fit on that shuttle. Were they just all hugging the whole flight there?

He can't help but bristle some when the stormtroopers start bullying the twi'lek, but he also is perfectly aware that he's not about to overpower even a small contingent of them. He does, however, reach out to catch one of them by the shoulder who tries to follow Kira into the inn and squeezes their shoulder tightly. She slaps his hand off with an irritated swear in Huttese before storming off.

Ben glances backward only for a moment before sighing and following them inside.]

I'm not usually welcome in general.

[He can't help but offer a bemused smile, like he knows something that Kira doesn't.]

So what, are you all gonna just...comb the whole planet? The moons? Seems like you've been set up, if you ask me. Which I know you aren't.

[ There's an irritated twitch of the muscles of her face, and slowly her gaze slides over to fix on him. He's followed her. The generous interpretation would be that he has only come back to finish his drink. She is not a generous woman.

In fact, she's beginning to think Ben Solo is gaming her. He'd be the only one who stood a chance of it, for there's no denying the tumult of her emotions in the face of him. No denying it inside her own mind, at least. But it's just as well. If he's working with the Resistance again, trying to protect them from her, this will be made easier.

And if he's not, then the same methods will cause someone else to crack.

She reaches a hand out and one of the patrons freezes in their flight towards the back door, instead choking on nothing, paralyzed in the midst of their movement. ]

Enhanced interrogation. [ She explains coolly and slowly, as if to a child. ] Someone in this village saw them arrive. That means someone can be made to talk.

[ Him, preferably. She could use the win. ]

[Ben has to force a laugh for a multitude of reasons, but most chiefly being that he'd learned long ago from his father that the easiest way to bring attention back to yourself was to act like you were unaffected by what was going on.]

Oh yeah. I'm sure the Resistances rolls around the galaxy with giant emblems painted on their ships, complete with neon signs that say "HEY, WE'RE BREAKING THE LAW!"

[He stays leaning against the entrance to the bar, folding his arms and shifting his shoulders.]

But--don't let me stop you, sweetheart. I'm sure you got it all under control.

[And this is definitely gonna be the part where he walks out before Kira can turn her ire on him. She'll track him down when her plan inevitably fails -- he's almost certain of it. Maybe he'd be able to procure a ship before then and start running, but he isn't counting on it.]

[ He is surprisingly unflinching in the face of her willingness to torture one of the citizens to draw information from — well, him. It's unsatisfying, and as a result, when she leaves, she lets up. She sucks her teeth, tongue pressing out briefly as her eyes dart around the cantina.

There's nothing for her here.

He knows where the base is. She's sure of it. Rather, she has convinced herself of it because it will mean that following Snoke's orders involves pursuing her own interests as well. She turns on her heel and marches out after him. ]

This will be easier if you cooperate.

[Honestly, he can’t believe it worked. It worked a little too well, actually. She comes after him far too fast to book passage off Ryloth. So, Ben turns to face her with a raised eyebrow.]

So, you listen to me enough when I talk to be annoyed by it, but not enough to digest anything I am actually saying.

[Ben actually manages to sound annoyed.]

I don’t know where anyone is. You think I’d open myself up to that after the last time? I don’t think so.

You're not here by coincidence.

[ The Force isn't that absurd. At least, she doesn't think so. Snoke has always taught her that it is a tool, not the entity of guidance that the Jedi regard it as. She's not very spiritual, as a result, and anything else would require accepting the possibility of kismet — that he had appeared to her just as she was preoccupied with him, in the road to something entirely unrelated. ]

I'm not fool enough to believe that, so you can stop pretending.

Do I look like I'm pretending?

[The answer to that is: no, he doesn't look like he's pretending.

But his truths are definitely half truths. The Resistance was somewhere on the planet at some point -- whether they were still there or where they were supposed to be, he didn't know. He conveniently avoids her first point.

Because yeah, it would be a crazy coincidence.]

Oh. I get it. Snoke sent you.

[Some of the confidence leaves his voice, replaced by disgust.]

Yes. I'm here for a reason. And you? What are you here for?

[ There's something efficient and probing about it, but it lacks the bite to be called ruthless. All bark. She is not here to attack him. She is not beyond probing his mind, but it is apparent by now that she is reticent to do so. She could have made her life easier by doing it already, but there is something stopping her. ]

Or do you need more time to fabricate a good lie?

Even if I was here for any particular reason, why would I tell you?

[Ben can't help the small scoff that sneaks between his nerves. He is not looking for a round two, after all -- but he can't really say anything without incriminating himself or the Resistance.

She probably knows that. He's not smart enough for this crap.]

To prevent me from taking steps to find out myself. [ She steps around in front of him, cutting off his path and narrowing her gaze. There's nothing there in the twitch of her expression, but buried in her eyes is a plea. Something strained and insistent and earnest. ] The Supreme Leader sent me here for results. By whatever means necessary.

[Kriff. He can't stay quiet in the face of that. Not just because he doesn't want a mind probe again, but because--

Well, mostly that. But the twi'lek were staring at the scene, and would now all be aware if he chose the coward's way (the more appealing way, he mentally corrects) out.]

What kind of results?

[He can stall. They were already evacuating the bases, surely. If he kept talking long enough...]

Don't you like to keep your hands clean of this business? [ She says it with only the most minute of judgments. The sort that implies she doesn't quite believe that his hands are clean, but if it's his goal, it's his business. He can keep trying. Keep pretending. She won't buy it. ] I think it'd be in your best interest if you didn't ask.

You don't believe that.

[Ben folds his arms pointedly, shifting his weight to make himself look taller -- not that it was particularly hard or that he was particularly short. Its more of a reaction to being annoyed and uncomfortable at the situation he's been placed in.]

So if you're going to try and drag me along, you can at least tell me what you're trying to frame me for.

You think I want you to take credit for my work?

[ She scoffs. That would require shame of some kind for it. She has no interest in that. More than that, she has no interest in involving herself in the obviously complicated relationship between himself and Leia Organa, who leads the Resistance. Rey lacks the knack for family interactions, and frankly, it's obvious that Ben's situation is as fraught as her own.

Another reason he'd be happier if he were to join with her instead of play the middle. But he waffles all the same, uncommitted. ]

You're coming along because I don't trust you to give me valid information. [ But at least he's accepted that he's coming along. ] The only person you care about is yourself. If I want to rely on what you tell me, then yours is the life that I have to threaten.

You think I want credit for your--whatever you're doing?

[It feels wrong and inhuman to call it "work", so he avoids that turn of phrase very purposefully. But she's right about most of that other stuff, so he exhales impatiently out of his nose.]

You're right. I only care about myself. Which means if I knew where the Resistance was, don't you think I'd tell you?

[He gives a side-long glance to the stormtroopers that have accompanied her.]

I think you should.

[ She offers this carefully, assessing him with elevator eyes that show no interest in the troopers that make him so nervous. They are not the ones he should fret about. She could send them away, and he would be left alone with the real monster. She regards him with a slight tilt in her head, realizing that he perhaps doesn't view it that way.

No. Surely he does. The troopers are only a symbol. She glances away from him. ]

But while I don't take you for selfless, I've never thought you were terribly clever either. You may not know their exact location, but you know something. Tell me. I won't ask again.

[He makes a grand show of mulling it over, glancing around presumably for an exit from this conversation, which he does not find. Besides, he handly remembered the last time he tried to run. It did not go well for him. And while he knows he is most likely properly fucked here, he would like to avoid as much injury as possible.

Eventually he sighs and pinches the skin between his eyes to force any tells out of his fave.]

Alright, fine. I know that you’re several parsecs too late to catch any of ‘em. I saw them evacuating the system when I landed. Couldn’t tell you from where though.

[Which is mostly true. He’d been coming to make a delivery, but they caught wind of Kira’s approach first and so the twi’lek reaped the spoils rather than the Resistance.]

[ It's not what she wants to hear. In fact, it's the worst thing he could have said. It's evident in the way her spine prickles and her hackles rise. She is not defeated, that much is certain. She is dreading what comes next. Returning to Snoke empty-handed, with only news that the Resistance had slipped their grasp, will lead to her being the one punished. The impossibility of it is irrelevant. The fact that Ben Solo and the distraction he provides had nothing to do with it matters not.

What matters is that this failure equates a personal failure on her part when it is her duty to make up for a previous mistake. ]

Does it hurt that your mother doesn't trust you with her location because she knows you would sell her out for a bristlemelon? [ It's pointlessly insulting. But she doesn't retract it. She can only lash out at him. ]

[He can’t hold his laugh, though he tries. A part of him is viciously pleased to be useless to “the cause” just this once, but also Rey’s insult could hardly be called an insult when it was — half true. His judgement had not always been the best. That was not a secret. He wouldn’t sell them out willingly. He certainly wouldn’t pointlessly sentence them to their deaths.

But all of that aside, something just innately tells him that laughing was the wrong reaction, so he reflexively puts his hands up.]

Not really. It usually keeps me out of trouble. Present company nonwithstanding.

[He can’t resist that one. She even gets a smarmy little Solo grin from him. He can’t help what he was born with.]

[ There's a little twitch of something in the base of her lizard brain that warns her of danger when he laughs, when he offers her that lopsided grin. It's a crossed wire of some kind. Obviously there's no danger in it, but she bristles all the same, stiffening and stilling and staring back at him with a suspicious placidity. Her gaze narrowed, her eyes searching his face for some context for that sound. ]

I am harder to fool than debtors.

[ Which is, probably, the usual callers for Solo's head. She frowns a little then, though, and glances at the stormtroopers. She nods her heads in Ben's direction. ]

Take him.

[He senses what is about to happen before she demands it — he can’t explain it, but he feels a chill set in his blood that wipes the smirk off his face. He deliberately takes a few steps back, looking between Kira and the platoon with her.]

Hey—come on. We don’t have to do this again. You already got what you—

[But the Stormtroopers don’t hesitate; when Ben starts to back away, he finds himself checked in the gut and the knee, forcing him to the ground to be restrainted.]

Results.

[ It's an icy reminder. ]

Unfortunately, the Resistance is gone.

[ But she wouldn't be going back to Snoke with nothing. She'd be going back with Ben Solo, and that, perhaps, would be enough to lure his mother. She could hope, at least. It was the only offering she had, and her life had to be worth more to her than —

Than whatever that feeling was. ]

And you, our only tie to them. [ Rey walks up, leaning over to get at his eye level, hands behind her back lest she feel the instinct to reach out for him. ] You should have given us something.

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