Encounter on Lothal (Kylo/OC)

Chapter 2

(With apologies to Alan Dean Foster)

Almost twenty-six standard hours after departing from The Supremacy, Ren set the ship down in a dry, dusty plain overlooking a series of conical formations nestled in waving grasses on the planet Lothal. This had to be the place, he thought, consulting his maps before disembarking.

Striding down the ramp of the ship alone, Ren secured his lightsaber to his hip and scanned the area using an ocular scope as his billowing raven cloak flapped in the breeze. He was seeking a pentagonal holocron fabled to have been possessed by the spirit of a Sith. Ren was sure it would lead him to other secrets and greater power, power perhaps to enable him to escape from his present circumstances under the control of Snoke.

Kylo Ren had a hard time admitting it to himself, but he was slowly coming to realize he was not so much the apprentice of Snoke, but his slave. All Ren's efforts, every goal in his purview, every moment of his life, was entailed to the dark leader, much, as he'd come to discover through logs and files, as his grandfather had been enslaved to Emperor Palpatine. He had decided he would not suffer his grandfather's fate, though he often endured soul-shattering doubt in his own abilities to escape. He concluded that he needed help in the form of whatever supernatural resources he could glean from force-imbued relics and artifacts.

Striding through the tall, lithe grasses, Ren focused on a single crevice between two identical conical spires, rocky twins rising from the landscape. There, he saw a slim, metallic object glistening in the sun. As he approached, its outline took shape and Ren realized it was a marker. Inscribed on the plate was a short labelling phrase, spelled out in galactic Basic – "DUME". Ren didn't know what it meant, but he was intent on finding out.

Concentrating his abilities on the tall, stony hills, he reached out with The Force, sending waves of energy into the monoliths in an effort to locate the entrance. He felt rumbling from under his feet as the two spires began to twist around and grow taller until finally each one presented a small alcove, one on its right and one on its left, which joined together to reveal a small doorway that Ren observed led down into a staircase.

Tentatively, he descended the stairs, his Force sensitivities on alert for any threatening activity around him. He felt a miniscule beckoning ahead, barely perceptible but steady, just the same. Using his lightsaber to illuminate his path, he walked through caves and tunnels, across land bridges and down embankments, passing fluorescent lichen and rivulets of underground streams until finally, in a small cavern at the end of a particularly tight shaft, he found what he was looking for – a twelve-sided holocron built in a golden frame with a red interior and emanating a deep crimson glow. He felt its dark power as he lifted it from its niche in the far wall of the grotto. He tucked the object in a small pocket inside his cloak, eager to return to his ship to discover its secrets.

Before he could move, though, the same rumbling Ren had heard at the surface began building all around him. He realized he must have triggered some mechanism that was closing the pillars again. He had to escape before he became trapped inside.

Running at breakneck speed, Ren did his best to dodge the tumbling rocks that began falling from the ceiling and walls of the chambers, only to be confronted with a missing land bridge at one point, which forced him to levitate himself across the empty chasm, praying he had enough strength to reach the other side without falling into the abyss.

Scrambling through miles of treacherous pathways, Ren finally arrived back at the stairwell only to find it closed, the former entranceway blocked by walls that weren't there when he had entered. Sitting for a moment to gather his thoughts, Ren assessed his physical well-being. His uniform was torn on one arm where he'd ripped it rushing through a particularly tight crevasse and gashed it on a rocky outcropping. His left leg had suffered a similar fate, and he realized he must have twisted his right ankle at one point, because now that he was out of fight-or-flight mode, the adrenaline which had suppressed his pain receptors was quickly ebbing and he could feel the swelling and throbbing in the joint. He hurt everywhere, all at once.