The Queen of the Dark | Kylo Ren

Blood in the Water

          Strapping her lightsaber to her belt, Xiia cannot ignore the fatigue that rests on her shoulders. The day and night residing after the wedding were silent. None of her officials congratulated her, not even a pat on the back. She knew what they were all thinking. They thought she was being irrational with siding with the First Order, but what choice did she have? Once peace has finally resurfaced on Dioya, they will be thanking her for the sacrifices she made for her people. After all, wasn't that what monarchs are supposed to do?

           She takes one last look at herself in the full-length mirror. There was no hope in covering up the darkness underneath her eyes. Sleep wouldn't come to her the night before. She tossed and turned, trying desperately to get Kylo Ren's face out of her head. The face of the trickster that visited her the previous night. His disguise in the Force worried her the most. Would he leave that out with their eventual lessons and use it torture her or would he be a righteous teacher? She would have to find out.

          Walking past the tossed sheets of her canopied bed, the queen exits out of her bedchamber. Waiting impatiently outside her door, High General Andris springs to her side.

          "Your Majesty, they're trying to break through the front," the general raises the small holograph to Xiia. In it, they can see the monstrosity happening at the space front. Chiss fighters and carriers swarming the half-constructed defense barrier surrounding the planet.

          "Kriff," the monarch swears under her breath, "Where's General Talon?"

          "He's waiting for you in the field," General Andris points ahead of them.

          Xiia picks up her pace to a jog. The guards stationed in front of her bedchamber assemble behind her. She yells over her shoulder to the general staying behind, "Ready the offensive. I want to be prepared for any possible outcome."

           "Yes, Your Majesty."

          The queen had no time to look back at the general as she began to sprint through the palace.

          Nothing like running for your army's life early in the morning.

          She and her guards race through the hallways of the palace and meet the light of the new Dioyan morning. Xiia slows, chest heaving as her feet stomp on the grassy field. The sun is already warming the damp skin of the monarch while she spots her general a few paces away. His back was turned to her, hands resting behind him in a fist. She follows his gaze to the two men standing in front of him. General Hux's eyes scour the Dioyan landscape. Eyes finding every crack and crevice in the mountains in the east. Stalking not too far from him, the masked menace stood motionless.

          Xiia didn't know what to be more aggravated about. The fact that he had the audacity to creep into her bedchamber the night before the wedding unannounced and disguised, or that he was now in front of her with his mask shielding his already revealed face. She chooses to ignore her ... husband immediately and approaches Cas, "How bad is it?"

          Cas quickly takes action, throwing the bow and simplicities out of the window, "They're determined to breach the gap once again. They know that if they break back in, they can defeat us."

          "How ignorant of them."

          "The command shuttle is ready for departure, Your Majesty."

           "Then, shall we?"

          Cas smirks, and Xiia makes a mental note of the notion.

          Neither one of them can take a single step forward without catching sight of General Hux deliberately blocking their path, "Your Highness, one question." A bony finger rises up in between him and the queen.