inappropriately timed force bond moments (both nsfw and humor approaches)
dream-sharing
emotional bleed/transference (from rey, involving other parties)
inappropriate force bond voyeurism on rey/poe or rey/finn
mid-conversation force bond interruption
The Rise of Skywalker- Cross-galaxy chase of the Resistance
anything related to ben solo, but especially:
snoke confessionals with family or friends of family
returning to the light
smuggler life style
jedi knight ben
resistance-fighter ben
The Rise of Skywalker- Force Ghost communications w/ Rey
anything related to supreme leader kylo ren, but especially:
fall via coup
resistance fighter reconditioning (gen or nsfw)
force ghost visits from anakin/luke/rey/leia/snoke
defeat by the resistance, and subsequent aftermath
The Rise of Skywalker- Mole Discovery w/ Hux
canto bight:
shady weapons deals
picking up prisoners
recruitment
obligatory dinner party
general casino shenanigans
beach party
basically any reason you can think of to use canto bight as a setting piece
A note on romance: I will ship all of the new trilogy characters with Kylo Ren (except Snoke/Family). But I have no interest in exploring domestic-style takes on them. Thank you for understanding.
[ what an underwhelming end for han solo's only son. she scrutinizes him, like she can't quite believe he doesn't have something up his sleeve. no. someone else must be coming for him. in order for him not to care.
she lifts her hand to his temple. ]
Just show me. Show me where she is. [ there's an insistent intimacy to her voice now, something coaxing as she begins to press herself into his mind again. ] She never cared about you. Not like she should have. It will be our little secret.
[He feels the pressure again, but the addition of her tone of voice somehow makes it worse. It feels like hot wax running down the back of his neck, but this time, he grits his teeth against it. He thinks not of his mother’s location, but of his mother’s love. How the tears she had been holding back began to fall when she found him st the base of the Falcon’s gangplank. How she had embraced him, and hiw she had told him that she understood, and not to forget her as he grew old.
And violently, he pushes it back on her, through the spike that drives into the center of his skull. She gains the information, of open space and the image of the Raddeus — but no recognizable star systems. Wild space.]
[ it's a potent weapon, a mother's love. the shot is better placed than any blaster bolt might be. her eyes widen as she tries to fight through it, but —
no. it's no use. just feeling it, even secondhand, even within him, rattles her. her chest opens up, an ache that she cannot describe. she had never known anything like that. she had gone without for her entire life, and to see him find strength in it hurts still more.
enough that when he pushes back, he gets a glimpse of something else. a young girl crying. clinging to her mother's side.
and someone else pulling her back, away.
no! she crows. no, i don't want to go! don't make me go with him! ]
Give. Her. To me. [ she tightens her jaw, snarling, and with tears streaming down her cheeks forces herself deeper into his mind. she casts these distractions aside. ]
[He starts to sweat, when he receives her memory. His eyes widen in shock, and pity shakes him down to the marrow of his bones. The scene plays once, but it feels like its on loop.]
—they gave you away?
[He sounds like he can’t believe it — but he does. He had seen the sort of cargo other smugglers carried, contracts that he refused and tore up on principal alone. She wasn’t one of those children, but if she had not been Force sensitive...well, she probably would have been.
The pain lessens as he reaches for more. All Kira gets in return is the loop of the Raddeus, lost to wild space.]
They gave you away to the First Order, didn’t they?
[ the pity pours over the link she has established, the link she had reopened like a fool. it incenses her. how dare he? ]
You ... would pity me? Look at yourself, you idiot. [ she spits it out. ] You're going to die here. Alone. Because you protected her.
[ but it's jealousy that pervades that connection between them. what did that feel like? she doesn't just want leia's location. she wants ... that feeling. ]
You’re the one afraid of being alone. And I feel sorry for you — because nobody deserves to be bought and sold.
[He says it with some understanding. Her probe doesn’t hurt him now. He has control of it — and he holds her there, pressed against Leia’s sorrow and love for him. He had come to terms with his lonliness — it was self imposed for too many reasons to count. But Kira had no choice.]
If I were you, I’d want everyone in the galaxy dead too. I’m a smuggler — not heartless.
[ what is this? compassion? while he sprawled in the interrogaiton chair? it was hard to tell who was really the one in control now, though. he had seized the link she had created, and that light was growing. burning. she flinched away from it, shaking her head to try and dispel it. the warmth. leia.
mother.
no— not her mother. his. she tries to shut down the bond. to snap out of it suddenly. to pull her mind back to herself, away from him. to spare herself that pain. ]
[He feels her yank back, and suddenly the chair feels more solid on his back. There is pressure kn his arm, from where the buyer had taken Kira away. There is a sorrow that nearly suffocates him with its potency. He takes a few breathes before replying.]
I get that a lot. But if I were smarter, I probably wouldn’t be here in the first place.
[He swallows some of the left over emotion, and blinks — to find his vision suddenly blurred, and his cheeks damo. When did he start crying?]
[ she reaches up to wipe her eyes. the back of her glove isn't particularly absorbant, so she winds up pulling it off. there's no need to hide it. he'd felt it. she's ashamed of the weakness, but it's done with.
there's a choked sound in her throat. she's more ashamed of that than anything. ]
It doesn't matter. You don't need to show me. The Supreme Leader will see you turn against her yourself.
[The words "Supreme Leader" don't invoke fear, but a deep loathing. It'd been his fault that his father was dead, and his fault that he and his mother were estranged as they were now.]
Why don't you just kill me yourself?
[Some of his compassion drains from his face. That's right -- she served the man who sought to split the galaxy in half for the sake of ruling it. She'd clearly had no choice in the matter, when she was a child -- but why now?]
What is this guy paying you, anyway? Power? A cushy seat under his boot?
[ would it help him, to know? would it turn him? no. but there are still tears on his face and they are her tears, not his. she has never ...
god, her hands are shaking. she pulls her glove back on. ]
You saw what I was.
[ she didn't want him to, but he had nonetheless. ]
I was nothing. Nobody. The Supreme Leader has given me something greater than money, greater than power: a purpose, a place in this galaxy. As he will give to you. [ she stretches her fingers into the glove and lowers her hand to her side. ] As much as I would like to see you suffer, it is not Leader Snoke's desire.
Don't mistake me. You will die. Ben Solo will die. And then, whatever is left will kill General Organa.
[God that's ominous. He doesn't quite parse what she means -- its hard to digest that she seems to be implying that he is capable of being changed so easily. His father's skepticism about the dark and the light rings clear in his head.
Its so absurd that he can't help but scoff a little.]
You're crazy is what you are.
[He adjusts himself as much as he can while strapped down so he can try and make his point more clearly.]
You're not trying to tell me that Supreme Leader Snoke cares about you. As a person. That's not having a place in the galaxy, that's being a lapdog. You could walk away from that now, if you wanted to.
[ his fervor puzzles her, genuinely. enough that she lets him continue breathing because she wants to see where this goes.
and it's a good question. snoke may not care about her, but neither does any other part of the galaxy. all she would do is lose resources and make enemies — worse, she would finally have to face many of the enemies she had already made for herself, and without the support of the first order at her back this time.
no. he wasn't worth that. what she had here was the best she was ever going to get it. if she couldn't make anyone in the galaxy love her, then at least by and large they would fear her. that would have to do. ]
[The way he says it makes it seem like the most obvious point he's ever made in his life. That had been part of the reason he and his mother had never quite seen eye to eye. She was always duty above self.
Ben Solo would most likely never be that person. There was too much of his father in him.]
[ she laughs, but it's not joyous or light. it sounds like something breaking. ]
From what? To do what? What is freedom, alone, worth?
[ not much to her, by the sound of it. ]
We aren't all born with your advantages, Solo. [ she spits the name. ] I was born to be a slave. And I've chosen my master well. My name is known the galaxy wide.
[Yeah, that's weird. Again, there's that pity. Of course she doesn't know what its like to be free. To actually be capable of making choices instead of being under someone's command all the time.
How did he end up in this position, appealing to Snoke's apprentice's humanity that clearly does not exist?]
Last I checked, slaves don't get to choose their masters. But you're right -- what do I know? I'm the son of a senator. I should be sitting pretty on a committee somewhere being handfed meiloorun. Or, since you and your buddy Snoke tore all of that down, maybe I should be the head of an army myself. Yeah?
[He gestures upward, for the purpose of accenting his point.]
-- or, maybe I would be, if legacy actually meant anything. That's the beauty of choice -- Kira, right? Your name is Kira.
[Is he asking because he genuinely wasn't sure, or to make her mad? Hard to tell.]
[ impulse takes over before training can stop it. she reaches one hand out and the air constricts around his throat again.
no. he had seen something else there in her mind, hadn't he? something that deserved to be locked away, deep enough that no one would ever find it. that girl ... that child. she had to be gone. and he had seen her. ]
Yes. It is.
[ an important reminder not to engage him in this any more. it is a messy business, breaking down a mind, but she will do it. snoke believes that she can do it and (he doesn't know how strong this man-child is in the force, but—) she must.
she will deliver ben solo to him, she will turn him. if she could do this, she had no reason to fear. she will have delivered the supreme leader everything he wanted. the defector. the very resistance. her station — the only thing she's ever had to protect — will be secure. ]
Don't worry. You'll see soon firsthand.
[ she doesn't take her time this time. she shunts herself into his mind. good. let something break. let it all break and then when he tries to pick up the pieces, she will be the one to show him how. perhaps he will serve her, instead of snoke. and she will be the master. ]
[Ok, so that might have been a mistake. He chokes, and she drives forward into his mind again. And it hurts, more than it had hurt before. He was running out of energy to fight back -- and he wasn't even sure how to fight back. Everything was pure instinct, but the instinct begins to fail him when he cannot breathe.
His writhing increases. There is a sense that he might be screaming, if he could breathe, and he could almost feel a physical hook finding his doubt in his family. She drags it to the surface, and tears start to cloud his eyes again.
He remembered the day his mother had contacted him, to tell him about Darth Vader. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so betrayed by secrecy, but it wasn't hard to understand why when he had seen how the senate had reacted to the information. She had never sensed that sort of power within him -- the potential might have been there, for him to be a great Force wielder, if he had ever cared to engage with it.
But he hadn't. He'd turned his uncle away, and ran from it. Stars only knew where he was now -- maybe if he hadn't been so selfish, his father would still be alive.
--there it is. That righteous fury again that has him clenching his fists, eyes slowly sliding open into a glare that bores back into Kira.
You won't win. It rings, clear as a bell, across the bridge of their minds. Even if she succeeded in her task and broke his spirit (he could feel something in his chest and in his mind slowly cracking to pieces), they would never convince him to do their dirty work for them.]
[ ah yes, vader. the sith's greatest failure. and ben, the same to his family. he'd fled. he'd turned away from his mother's cause, from righteous vengeance over his father's death. he too was a disappointment. he—
what is this?
he calls out to her across the connection. co-opts it again, in another way. but this feels ... no, this is something else. creases line her forehead she digs her heels in, spreads her stance, as if his resistance had some physical weight to it.
she grits her teeth and pushes again. the hook of his father. his grief. the pain of losing him. ]
You're not free. [ the suffering springs anew as she summons it to the surface. ] You've never been free of this hate.
[He makes a feral sound and leans forward, pushing into that wall he's somehow managed to erect. He can see and feel how she struggles against him. It feels like he is bleeding somehwere -- his wrists, maybe. Out of his lungs, his heart, he can't tell. All he knows is that his fury is stronger than her's, if he just lets himself feel it.
So he does. They took his father from him -- they wouldn't take his mother too.]
You're right. I won't.
[Yes, her intent is clear to him now. She wants him to crumble in her hands, so she can deliver a prize to the Supreme Leader that isn't competition for her own place at his side.]
This isn't what you want.
[He digs in return, and tries to find what she does want instead. If she was going to keep playing this game with him, then he was going to make use of it. He's too deep into his need to turn it against her that the oily sensation that slides down his spine doesn't register.]
[ anger spikes in her chest. how dare he? assuming that he understands her, that he has any room to speak about what she wants. this rank amateur had vastly overstepped himself, and he would regret it. ]
I want ... you ... to kneel.
[ not literally, of course. even locked in that rack, he had proven plenty of trouble to her. she wouldn't be letting him loose until she was absolutely sure.
but he can see a different story. there was a longing, introduced by the memory she'd seen of his mother. the shape of an open question, still forming. could she have had that? was it too late? and implicit therein, that longing, never satisfied by her work under snoke. to love. to be loved. to be anything but alone.
she shuts it down hard. shunts him back with a block of her own, which distracts her from trying to probe his thoughts and dismantle them. she cannot both protect herself and destroy him. she has to choose. ]
[She wants him to kneel. He knew that -- kneeling would mean a victory for Snoke, and for the First Order if they managed to break him. And stars, does it hurt. It feels like his nerves are on fire, that all of his skin itches and he can't scratch it away, and trying to push forward with all of that happening is --
He catches a glimpse before it falls away to darkness. Her longing was -- foreign, to him. He'd always been loved. That was the cornerstone of his life. No matter what happened to his family, they loved him. And that doing the right thing wasn't always easy, or pleasant.
But the surety that he was loved strengthens when that wall goes up, and the digging slows just enough for him to breathe. Its impossible to know how long he can stand up to this torture, but there is one thing that rings clear in all her other thoughts.]
Don't do this. You don't have to do this.
[Its a plea born of exhaustion. Now that she's stopped pressing quite so hard, that oil on his spine has begun to dry, and it makes him uncomfortable. He doesn't want to do it again, not sure that he could even if she dropped the wall.]
I know. [ she rasps out the words. the faux gentleness in her approach has gone away with her patience, with her distance from this matter. he has ripped it from her as surely as she has stolen his freedom from him. ] Because of the Supreme Leader, I don't have to do anything I don't want to.
[ except follow his orders, whispers a traitorous voice in her mind. it is that voice which stops her from closing her grip around his windpipe again. she's surprised by the falter. by the fact that it seems almost as if she physically cannot do it.
she shakes away the thought like a distraction, though it's clear in her face that it perturbs her on a deeper level. ]
I want to.
[ this is a lie. and it makes her bones and her ears ring to recognize it as such. ]
You're stronger than him. You don't need to follow him. So--why are you?
[He might not be able to probe her anymore, but if he'd learned anything as a smuggler, it was facial tells. Something is needling at her, and he can take a good guess with the knowledge he already as.
But he also feels his ability to resist her strength fraying his edges. His pleas are born of impatience, fear, and exhaustion.]
Stop lying to yourself! Slavery is not what you want--!
[Something in him pushes outward, and it feels like a punch to his gut that winds him, makes him nauseous, and puts him on the edge of consciousness.]
[ stronger? than snoke? the very idea seems laughable. and yet it does make her wonder. she holds some value to him as an apprentice, an enforcer. maybe it is that she has some power he — no.
he is the supreme leader. that he delegates his tasks does not mean he cannot complete them. this is leadership and how it works. she forces that away, writing it off as ben's efforts to confuse her. ]
You think so highly of yourself.
[ she can see him now. her eyes are clear. he's ragged, at the end of his leash. he has broken the connection, but it has taken everything he has to force her out, and she can weather the pain of it unflinchingly. this does not measure anywhere near the worst pain she has faced. had snoke looked in her mind and seen these things, she would be in pain. this is ... annoyance. inconvenience. ]
You think you can walk in here and turn me? [ she draws closer. the physical will do for this. she grabs his chin in one hand, turning it to face her. he's barely conscious. pathetic. ] You think your life is worth that, to me?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ what an underwhelming end for han solo's only son. she scrutinizes him, like she can't quite believe he doesn't have something up his sleeve. no. someone else must be coming for him. in order for him not to care.
she lifts her hand to his temple. ]
Just show me. Show me where she is. [ there's an insistent intimacy to her voice now, something coaxing as she begins to press herself into his mind again. ] She never cared about you. Not like she should have. It will be our little secret.
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And violently, he pushes it back on her, through the spike that drives into the center of his skull. She gains the information, of open space and the image of the Raddeus — but no recognizable star systems. Wild space.]
No.
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no. it's no use. just feeling it, even secondhand, even within him, rattles her. her chest opens up, an ache that she cannot describe. she had never known anything like that. she had gone without for her entire life, and to see him find strength in it hurts still more.
enough that when he pushes back, he gets a glimpse of something else. a young girl crying. clinging to her mother's side.
and someone else pulling her back, away.
no! she crows. no, i don't want to go! don't make me go with him! ]
Give. Her. To me. [ she tightens her jaw, snarling, and with tears streaming down her cheeks forces herself deeper into his mind. she casts these distractions aside. ]
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—they gave you away?
[He sounds like he can’t believe it — but he does. He had seen the sort of cargo other smugglers carried, contracts that he refused and tore up on principal alone. She wasn’t one of those children, but if she had not been Force sensitive...well, she probably would have been.
The pain lessens as he reaches for more. All Kira gets in return is the loop of the Raddeus, lost to wild space.]
They gave you away to the First Order, didn’t they?
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You ... would pity me? Look at yourself, you idiot. [ she spits it out. ] You're going to die here. Alone. Because you protected her.
[ but it's jealousy that pervades that connection between them. what did that feel like? she doesn't just want leia's location. she wants ... that feeling. ]
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[He says it with some understanding. Her probe doesn’t hurt him now. He has control of it — and he holds her there, pressed against Leia’s sorrow and love for him. He had come to terms with his lonliness — it was self imposed for too many reasons to count. But Kira had no choice.]
If I were you, I’d want everyone in the galaxy dead too. I’m a smuggler — not heartless.
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mother.
no— not her mother. his. she tries to shut down the bond. to snap out of it suddenly. to pull her mind back to herself, away from him. to spare herself that pain. ]
You'd be smarter if you were.
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I get that a lot. But if I were smarter, I probably wouldn’t be here in the first place.
[He swallows some of the left over emotion, and blinks — to find his vision suddenly blurred, and his cheeks damo. When did he start crying?]
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[ she reaches up to wipe her eyes. the back of her glove isn't particularly absorbant, so she winds up pulling it off. there's no need to hide it. he'd felt it. she's ashamed of the weakness, but it's done with.
there's a choked sound in her throat. she's more ashamed of that than anything. ]
It doesn't matter. You don't need to show me. The Supreme Leader will see you turn against her yourself.
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Why don't you just kill me yourself?
[Some of his compassion drains from his face. That's right -- she served the man who sought to split the galaxy in half for the sake of ruling it. She'd clearly had no choice in the matter, when she was a child -- but why now?]
What is this guy paying you, anyway? Power? A cushy seat under his boot?
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god, her hands are shaking. she pulls her glove back on. ]
You saw what I was.
[ she didn't want him to, but he had nonetheless. ]
I was nothing. Nobody. The Supreme Leader has given me something greater than money, greater than power: a purpose, a place in this galaxy. As he will give to you. [ she stretches her fingers into the glove and lowers her hand to her side. ] As much as I would like to see you suffer, it is not Leader Snoke's desire.
Don't mistake me. You will die. Ben Solo will die. And then, whatever is left will kill General Organa.
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Its so absurd that he can't help but scoff a little.]
You're crazy is what you are.
[He adjusts himself as much as he can while strapped down so he can try and make his point more clearly.]
You're not trying to tell me that Supreme Leader Snoke cares about you. As a person. That's not having a place in the galaxy, that's being a lapdog. You could walk away from that now, if you wanted to.
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[ his fervor puzzles her, genuinely. enough that she lets him continue breathing because she wants to see where this goes.
and it's a good question. snoke may not care about her, but neither does any other part of the galaxy. all she would do is lose resources and make enemies — worse, she would finally have to face many of the enemies she had already made for herself, and without the support of the first order at her back this time.
no. he wasn't worth that. what she had here was the best she was ever going to get it. if she couldn't make anyone in the galaxy love her, then at least by and large they would fear her. that would have to do. ]
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[The way he says it makes it seem like the most obvious point he's ever made in his life. That had been part of the reason he and his mother had never quite seen eye to eye. She was always duty above self.
Ben Solo would most likely never be that person. There was too much of his father in him.]
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From what? To do what? What is freedom, alone, worth?
[ not much to her, by the sound of it. ]
We aren't all born with your advantages, Solo. [ she spits the name. ] I was born to be a slave. And I've chosen my master well. My name is known the galaxy wide.
[ but not rey. it's kira that the galaxy knows. ]
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[Yeah, that's weird. Again, there's that pity. Of course she doesn't know what its like to be free. To actually be capable of making choices instead of being under someone's command all the time.
How did he end up in this position, appealing to Snoke's apprentice's humanity that clearly does not exist?]
Last I checked, slaves don't get to choose their masters. But you're right -- what do I know? I'm the son of a senator. I should be sitting pretty on a committee somewhere being handfed meiloorun. Or, since you and your buddy Snoke tore all of that down, maybe I should be the head of an army myself. Yeah?
[He gestures upward, for the purpose of accenting his point.]
-- or, maybe I would be, if legacy actually meant anything. That's the beauty of choice -- Kira, right? Your name is Kira.
[Is he asking because he genuinely wasn't sure, or to make her mad? Hard to tell.]
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no. he had seen something else there in her mind, hadn't he? something that deserved to be locked away, deep enough that no one would ever find it. that girl ... that child. she had to be gone. and he had seen her. ]
Yes. It is.
[ an important reminder not to engage him in this any more. it is a messy business, breaking down a mind, but she will do it. snoke believes that she can do it and (he doesn't know how strong this man-child is in the force, but—) she must.
she will deliver ben solo to him, she will turn him. if she could do this, she had no reason to fear. she will have delivered the supreme leader everything he wanted. the defector. the very resistance. her station — the only thing she's ever had to protect — will be secure. ]
Don't worry. You'll see soon firsthand.
[ she doesn't take her time this time. she shunts herself into his mind. good. let something break. let it all break and then when he tries to pick up the pieces, she will be the one to show him how. perhaps he will serve her, instead of snoke. and she will be the master. ]
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His writhing increases. There is a sense that he might be screaming, if he could breathe, and he could almost feel a physical hook finding his doubt in his family. She drags it to the surface, and tears start to cloud his eyes again.
He remembered the day his mother had contacted him, to tell him about Darth Vader. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so betrayed by secrecy, but it wasn't hard to understand why when he had seen how the senate had reacted to the information. She had never sensed that sort of power within him -- the potential might have been there, for him to be a great Force wielder, if he had ever cared to engage with it.
But he hadn't. He'd turned his uncle away, and ran from it. Stars only knew where he was now -- maybe if he hadn't been so selfish, his father would still be alive.
--there it is. That righteous fury again that has him clenching his fists, eyes slowly sliding open into a glare that bores back into Kira.
You won't win. It rings, clear as a bell, across the bridge of their minds. Even if she succeeded in her task and broke his spirit (he could feel something in his chest and in his mind slowly cracking to pieces), they would never convince him to do their dirty work for them.]
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what is this?
he calls out to her across the connection. co-opts it again, in another way. but this feels ... no, this is something else. creases line her forehead she digs her heels in, spreads her stance, as if his resistance had some physical weight to it.
she grits her teeth and pushes again. the hook of his father. his grief. the pain of losing him. ]
You're not free. [ the suffering springs anew as she summons it to the surface. ] You've never been free of this hate.
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So he does. They took his father from him -- they wouldn't take his mother too.]
You're right. I won't.
[Yes, her intent is clear to him now. She wants him to crumble in her hands, so she can deliver a prize to the Supreme Leader that isn't competition for her own place at his side.]
This isn't what you want.
[He digs in return, and tries to find what she does want instead. If she was going to keep playing this game with him, then he was going to make use of it. He's too deep into his need to turn it against her that the oily sensation that slides down his spine doesn't register.]
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I want ... you ... to kneel.
[ not literally, of course. even locked in that rack, he had proven plenty of trouble to her. she wouldn't be letting him loose until she was absolutely sure.
but he can see a different story. there was a longing, introduced by the memory she'd seen of his mother. the shape of an open question, still forming. could she have had that? was it too late? and implicit therein, that longing, never satisfied by her work under snoke. to love. to be loved. to be anything but alone.
she shuts it down hard. shunts him back with a block of her own, which distracts her from trying to probe his thoughts and dismantle them. she cannot both protect herself and destroy him. she has to choose. ]
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He catches a glimpse before it falls away to darkness. Her longing was -- foreign, to him. He'd always been loved. That was the cornerstone of his life. No matter what happened to his family, they loved him. And that doing the right thing wasn't always easy, or pleasant.
But the surety that he was loved strengthens when that wall goes up, and the digging slows just enough for him to breathe. Its impossible to know how long he can stand up to this torture, but there is one thing that rings clear in all her other thoughts.]
Don't do this. You don't have to do this.
[Its a plea born of exhaustion. Now that she's stopped pressing quite so hard, that oil on his spine has begun to dry, and it makes him uncomfortable. He doesn't want to do it again, not sure that he could even if she dropped the wall.]
Please.
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[ except follow his orders, whispers a traitorous voice in her mind. it is that voice which stops her from closing her grip around his windpipe again. she's surprised by the falter. by the fact that it seems almost as if she physically cannot do it.
she shakes away the thought like a distraction, though it's clear in her face that it perturbs her on a deeper level. ]
I want to.
[ this is a lie. and it makes her bones and her ears ring to recognize it as such. ]
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[He might not be able to probe her anymore, but if he'd learned anything as a smuggler, it was facial tells. Something is needling at her, and he can take a good guess with the knowledge he already as.
But he also feels his ability to resist her strength fraying his edges. His pleas are born of impatience, fear, and exhaustion.]
Stop lying to yourself! Slavery is not what you want--!
[Something in him pushes outward, and it feels like a punch to his gut that winds him, makes him nauseous, and puts him on the edge of consciousness.]
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he is the supreme leader. that he delegates his tasks does not mean he cannot complete them. this is leadership and how it works. she forces that away, writing it off as ben's efforts to confuse her. ]
You think so highly of yourself.
[ she can see him now. her eyes are clear. he's ragged, at the end of his leash. he has broken the connection, but it has taken everything he has to force her out, and she can weather the pain of it unflinchingly. this does not measure anywhere near the worst pain she has faced. had snoke looked in her mind and seen these things, she would be in pain. this is ... annoyance. inconvenience. ]
You think you can walk in here and turn me? [ she draws closer. the physical will do for this. she grabs his chin in one hand, turning it to face her. he's barely conscious. pathetic. ] You think your life is worth that, to me?
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