sololoquy | open post

[ That answer isn't good enough for Kira, as it turns out. She can sense his stubbornness, his evasion, his discomfort, but none of it provides her with an answers, and she's too curious and fixated to settle for less. He has upheaved her life, put her on the run — only through her own choices, admittedly, but she's not going to be self-reflective enough to accept that blame when she can put it squarely on him for karking things up instead.

She surges forward and grabs him by the chin and forces his face to turn towards hers, demanding eye contact, demanding anything more than his imitation of remaining placid and unaffected. ]

Why? Why did you want to?

[ But she doesn't like what she sees there. Instantly, in fact, she regrets touching his face and getting in it at the same time and she releases his chin and recoils like he's a recently fired ion drive. There's a jolt of fear there because all of this is getting pretty directly at one thing: intimacy and human connection.

It shouldn't be that surprising. He sees her as human, even if he also sees the monster and the weapon that she has been shaped into. In many ways that is what fascinates her about him. But it also makes her furious and uncomfortable and she cannot help but poke that rancor. She regrets it. Often. Always. ]

[Something flutters in his chest and frops heavily in his stomach when she grabs him, turns him, and drags him into her face. He goes entirely stiff out of fear — not fear of being injured as will become apparent in the way that he does not stop her. He also doesn’t really relax when he sinks back into the pilot’s seat. Ben is forced to clear his throat and shift back into the most unaffected pose he can manage. The effort mostly fails; his fingertips are quaking slightly.

He can’t be attracted to Snoke’s assassin. It just — he couldn’t be. There was no known galaxy where that was acceptable.]

Because you — didn’t kill me. Haven’t killed me. I like having you around.

[Maybe she won’t notice him slip that last one in there. He could handle the rejection — it wasn’t like he hadn’t handled it before. But he still doesn’t want to hear it. And really, this was totally ridiculous. She was afraid of being too close to him. It shouldn’t have mirrored that way.]

[ It's maybe one of the stupidest things she's ever heard. 'You didn't kill me, so I like having you around.' But on some basic level, she gets it. Most of her time has been spent looking over her shoulder and wondering who's out to kill her; the fact that she had woken to Ben attending her instead had been the unnerving trigger to all of this demand for substantiation in the first place.

Still. She stands there, flushed and panicked for a moment, not sure what to do with that. I like having you around. It's so simple and straightforward and identifies what she, too, has felt since — well, since she had tortured him, by his account. She grapples with it anyway. It is less odd, she thinks, in that direction. She is used to being feared. Not … wanted.

But it's a warm sentiment, and it settles in her chest even as it turns her stomach.

It is not so easy for her, though. She has wrested it from him, but she cannot come forward with I feel connected to you. It sounds asinine even in her head. But she had been drawn to him, asked him to read to her rather than spend her time alone and vigilant, because she too liked being around him. And that demands recognition of some kind. ]

I see.

[ Fuckin nailed it. ]

Our paths are tied together now. [ She says this slowly. ] If your intent is to persuade me to stay, you need not waste the effort. [ She has literally nowhere else she can go, at this point. He has avoided Snoke this long; he's her best bet at escaping punishment for, well, fraternizing with him. A self-perpetuating problem. Kira is in big trouble. ]

I think you give me too much credit. Keep that up.

[It is an effort to waylay the tension he suddenly feels twisting horribly in his stomach. “I see” isn’t much of an answer, nor is almost anything she said after that. It doesn’t really feel reciprocated, even in the confirmation that she has no plans to leave him.

It feels childish and selfish to want something...more. Also, psychotic. This was Snoke’s apprentice. His father must have been turning in his grave.]

A-anyway, we should. Probably keep moving. Just in case.

[Hapes had nothing for either of them.]

[ She nods, quieter now that she has her answer. The angsty defensiveness has faded, given way to a sense of understanding, which would bring her peace if it weren't rife with so much conflict. He feels as she does, an inexplicable pull, but that pull has also been responsible for turning her away from Snoke. Snoke, who had given her everything, who had promised her power and importance and purpose.

The Supreme Leader had been right, it turns out. It feels silly to have thrown it away for this: I like having you around. Yet she can't quit chasing it. ]

When the ship's ready. [ It'll be a while longer, probably. They'd planned on overnighting on Hapes. ] ... I can move to the floor, if you'd also like to sleep.

[ She looks uncomfortable after having just made a big deal about things like basic human decency. Now here she is showing her ass by offering him his own bunk. ]

...right. I knew that.

[Ben slowly removes his hands from the controls, doing his best not to look sheepish. It was his instinct to run away from his problems — and he had been about to try and flee the awkwardness of this interaction by shooting the Falcon into space while it was still refueling. Stupid.

Well, he couldn’t possibly fuck this up anymore. He is at least convinced of that, until she speaks.

He glances up at her, and can’t hold back his charmed smile. As it turns out, Kira is quite bad at hiding how much she is intrigued by being treated like a human being. That is adorable and he loves it.]

I can sleep in the chair. I’ve done it before.

[A little voice asks him WHAT THE HELL HE IS DOING and his smile fades some. She doesn’t like it when he is smirking at her. He has figured that out at least — so he tries to will it away entirely before he gets called on it.]

[ His smile is disgusting and he should feel bad. No, really, the twitch of her lips looks almost like she might be sick looking at it. She doesn't know what else to do. She's not used to people smiling at her, and it's not the first time he's done it. Especially on the heels of a declaration like that, she flounders over it.

It weakens, but he doesn't have the good sense to wipe it away entirely, and so Kira sputters for a short moment, trying to figure out what to do about that. The answer is nothing. Nothing. ]

It's your ship. [ She looks away in a huff. ] I'm not soft. I've slept on worse.

Have you?

[Her floundering is palpable, somehow, though he didn't need any intuition after she pointedly looks away from him. It does not cure the nasty urge to press her -- in fact, it makes it worse. So much worse.

So, like a true Solo, he hoists himself out of the chair to close the distance, leaning smartly against the top of it to loom over Kira instead. It doesn't quite trap her in the corner, but it makes it much harder to avoid looking at him.]

How much worse?

[ Usually she stands and carries herself like she's taller than him, despite the considerable disparity, but when he looms like that, she appears to shrink and wither, as though she were a star collapsing onto itself. He's just too karking close. If he were anyone else she'd close her fist and cut off his windpipe and be done with it, but —

She doesn't want to. It's that simple, just as he had put it. But she does feel panic clawing its way up her throat, shortening her breath. Her pupils narrow to pinpricks as fear constricts them, her pulse roaring in her ears as her heart picks up.

She reaches back to grab onto the copilot's chair to steady herself, jaw set. Worse than his proximity is the question. He is trying to drag out her vulnerability. It had not been an offer. She flounders for a way to discourage him. ]

Sith temples are built of stone. My master sent me to one to build my lightsaber.

[ She was cold and alone and barely thirteen years old then. She leaves those details out. They are too critical to how unpleasant it had been. ]

The floor is nothing. [ Her voice sounds thick and unfamiliar to her. ] Sleep in your bunk.

[He listens, and watches her reaction. At this point, he is just trying to get a rise out of her. Maybe she will pick up on that -- maybe she won't.

But Ben's lips stretch into a playful smirk. She makes it far too easy -- he can't remember the last time he's actually had someone drag their reaction out for this long.

By now, he is used to being left behind -- or slapped. He'd almost be ok with a slap from Kira. He may or may not be thinking about how to get it from her.]

No. I don't think I will.

[ The greatest problem here is that while she feels panicked over not knowing what to do about him in her space, she also doesn't particularly want him to leave it. But the smirk draws her attention to the fact that this feels less than genuine, and that opens the barn doors on her rage.

Unfortunately she doesn't reach to slap him. She just shoves him bodily back at the pilot's chair, snarling. ]

Fine. [ She tries to straighten up and gather her composure back, but she's red-faced still from the proximity. ] It doesn't matter to me what you do.

[He is not particularly well balanced, so her shove works handily. He's almost disappointed, but at the same time, he'd gotten what he wanted. He can spot the red in her cheeks -- even if her snarl makes his heart flutter and drop nervously into his stomach.]

You don't need to prove anything to me. And you don't have to sleep on the floor.

[He points this out only after he's found his voice again, and he has to clear his throat at least once to get a hold of it.]

Its a freighter -- built for a crew. There's a padded bench, the pilot chairs ... my bunk.

[ The way he says that is suspect. Kira narrows her eyes, scrutinizing him, which is all for the best because she needs the moment to pull it together and not look so flustered. She's not used to sharing space. She's less used to people willingly getting in her space, even less from those who would test her willingness to commit a murder, and least of all from those who have already experienced pain at her hand. ]

Obviously.

[ She seethes it. She's not going to clarify that she had offered to take the floor so that she could ... sleep in the same room with him. That it ties back to a desire to be around him. Though it stops up her throat, briefly. ]

If you're not going to use it, I plan to.

[ And she slips away from the cockpit then because at least if she goes back to sleep she will be free of this torment. ]

Good--

[She might hear him exhale and lift himself out of the creaky pilot's seat to follow her just a few steps after she leaves the room. He doesn't really realize he is doing it until they are half way back into the Falcon.

Then, he stops.]

I mean it though. You're better off with the bed.

[He...sits down on the bench for this, because he expects her to react in a manner that is going to make him regret bring this up. But there was a purpose to this before he decided to be an asshole.]

You were tossing a lot earlier. Nightmares?

[ Kira stops in her stride, hesitating, but her countenance doesn't properly change. It's still just as stiff and straight as ever, but she slowly pivots, casting a loathsome glance over her shoulder at him on the bench. The kind of gaze that burns a hole right through him. ]

No.

[ A lie, and a poor one. She does not try to make it sound otherwise. But it's hard and violent and brokers no further questioning on the subject matter. Then she turns back around and carries on into the corridor towards his bed. ]

Liar.

[Yeah there's. Nothing to stop that. Even as he says it, he mentally slaps his own face. Idiot.

Time to play it off and stretch out on the bench.]

I'm taking off when the ship's ready whether you're awake or not.

[ 'Liar' hangs over her as she disappears into the crew cabin, gathering the blanket and the book and her saber and trying to ignore the fact that she has outright nested in his bed like a lost bird. It is not the worst thing she has been called; not even the worst thing he has called her. But it stings because he has caught her, spotted the chink in her armor and sought to exploit it.

She burrows under the weighted blanket, and under the rest of his bedding, only once she has tucked the lightsaber and book away where they won't disrupt her sleep. The smell of his pillow only makes his presence linger in worse and more obvious ways. She wrestles with that, tossing and turning with no way to get comfortable. The nightmares wait at the edges of her mind as if he has summoned them.

She rolls flat onto her back and stares up at the ceiling. The weight of the blanket only makes her feel claustrophobic. The ambience of his stirring and chattering, as annoying as she claims him to be, has been helping to dispel the unease lingering in the back of her mind. It descends now unchecked, hideous memories and intrusive thoughts she can't fight.

Out of sheer stubbornness she presses her eyes shut and buries her face in his pillow and bites down her rage.

Kira should not be here. She should have gone back to Snoke, should have flown them all the way to that fake base and taken the punishment she was given. Now she's a fugitive tied at the end of a string. It is only a matter of time before her Master comes calling, and she will suffer worse for indulging this. She should be able to hate Snoke for that, but instead she finds the fury channeled toward Ben Solo for daring to seduce her to entertaining it in the first place.

Eventually anger brings her the calm necessary to fall into a fitful sleep. ]

[Ben doesn’t plan to fall asleep where he is, but he ges trapped in a loop of thought quite easily. If he ran to Wild Space with Kira, would Snoke really come after them? He doesn’t believe for ine second that Kira is as important to Snoke as she seems to think she is. Would be abandon the war just to chase down his apprentice and a cheeky smuggler? He doesn’t imagine so — but if he did...

Well, he might have just single handedlt saved the Republic. For a time, anyway.

He shakes himself out of that train of thought. That was his mother’s war, not his. But before he can get a good grip on it, he drifts off to sleep himself. But his sleep isn’t quite so pleasant this time.

The night is filled with darkness, a room where he is alone and isolated and where he can see nothing and only hear some whispers that he cannot make sense of. They feel far away — like they don’t beling to him at all. He tries to follow them anyway when curiousity gets the better of his dream-self. It isn’t long before he feels as if he is standing on top of the source of the whispers—but still, there is nothing there.

He can make out one word, and he echoes it.]

—Rey?

You shouldn't be here.

[ It's Kira's voice, or a strange variant of it. It's higher and nasaly. Which makes sense because it seems to belong to the child belong him, wearing a cream-colored rag of a frock and her hair messily tangled in three buns. She looks skinny. Bones jutting out in places they shouldn't, skin not just dirty but dark with bruises. The sound of some beast growling seems to quake the very ground under their feet for how deep and low and threatening it is.

The girl — Kira? — flinches and looks behind her, as though to look out for some nasty thing chasing her. She hastens towards Ben then and takes him by the hand. ]

He'll find you.

[ There's a hoarse warning in her voice, a child's stage whisper, that is nonetheless tense and sounds a lot like she has been trying to hide him. ]

[The appearance of a child fills him with dread, moreso the state she seems to be in. A conscious part of him understands that he can't possibly be awake at the present and yet -- everything feels so real. There is a weight to the small girl's hand when it wraps around a few of his fingers -- it is much to small to encompass any significant portion.

He stares dumbly in the direction of the growl, but allows himself to be tugged nonetheless.]

This--what's going on?

[There is a mixture of fear and anger in his voice. Why is he seeing this girl -- Rey? Kira? He can't even tell anymore. What are they running from, and -- why? Like this?

He'll find you echoes again in the back of his head. If this was Kira, could she be talking about Snoke?]

He can't find us where we are.

[ Unfortunately, though Kira begins to lead him off opposite the direction (inasmuch as such a shadowy nothingness can have direction), the growling sound appears to exist everywhere at once. It does not seem to get any closer or further away no matter how they move.

Despite this, the landscape begins to solidify around them, as if emerging from within some thick black fog. It's not a place anyone would want to visit, however. Rolling dunes start to swallow their feet, sand sloughing off with every step. Though Ben probably hasn't been to Jakku before — why would anyone go to Jakku? — he would be able to feel the sudden powerful certainty that this is where she was when 'he' found her.

And that it therefore is not being 'his' reach. ]

Yes, he can. [ Kira corrects him with all the stubbornness a child can possess. ] He's everywhere.

[ Here, at least. He is everywhere here, in her mind, because nothing is barred to him. He wormed his way into the deepest, darkest parts — a shadow to linger in perpetuity. ]

[If Ben is being honest, he's a little freaked out right now. The growling is awful, it feels like someone breathing down the back of his neck, and he shuts his eyes to try and drown it all out -- but little Kira's hand is still holding onto him and grounding him there.

When he opens his eyes again, it stops briefly. Long enough to look down at the small, frail girl.]

Lots of things are everywhere.

[He's mostly babbling to try and reassure himself. Kira doesn't scare him, especially not like this -- but that growling does. It is familiar, and calls to some long buried piece of him.]

What's so special about him?

He made me.

[ Put simply. It's all the explanation that she offers. It should, in her opinion, convey everything. This place is a reflection of her mind, and he made her, so he has access to all of it. Obviously. It's math.

The sunlight never cuts through the shadows, so they're left on what looks like Jakku at night, an enormous metal monolith hulking out of the sand. The growling grows louder and closer as they scurry across the landscape, bringing with it a claustrophobic feeling that some monster is closing its jaws around them. It's around this time that Kira stops. ]

It's too late. He knows. There's nowhere to hide you.

[ Except for that big ol' AT-AT in the sand. But Kira won't look at it?? For some reason. ]

[His heart beats faster until he feels it seize painfully in fear. That is what gets him to stop blindly allowing Kira to drag him toward the monolith. When he turns back around, there is only darkness behind them, shielding the horizon. The only way seems to be forward toward the monster--

Until he spots the dull gleam of the AT-AT. Instinct yanks him toward it with all of his being.]

Here--

[Now he finally takes the smaller girl's hand and turns her to seek refuge in the walker.]

No.

[ It's a sputter at first as she stumbles along with his tug.

Then the heels of her boots dig into the sand, gouging it, leaving deep valleys. And she yanks at his grip and tries to pull her hand back and fights and scrapes to wrest herself from his grip with all the ferocity of someone who is being burned simply by getting closer to it. ]

No! No, you can't! Don't go in there.

[ The closer they get, the more her distress increases, the pitch of her voice peaking. It brings the growling closer, like her pain and misery is a siren to summon the monster. ]

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child abuse warnings ig? ? ?

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