The Brighter Dark (Kylo Ren X Reader)

Ch. 15- I Didn't Want This

Whenever I'm writing about Ben Solo, I listen to the song Old Man by Chase Johanson. There's something about the lyrics that just help me connect to Ben's perspective. Highly recommend listening during this chapter to set the mood!

Hope y'all enjoy :)

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"Explain it to me again."

Kylo's voice was low but unthreatening, quiet but still somehow louder than the sounds of heavy hammers hitting metal bouncing off the walls of Albrekh's forge.

"She was draining my energy, Master." Vicrul said, his voice tinged with exhaustion and exasperation. "I've never felt anything like it. Is-" Vicrul hesitated.

Kylo looked up at him, waiting, a guarded question in his eyes. Vicrul sighed, then continued. "-is this the reason why you brought her on to be a Knight? You knew she was different a long time ago, didn't you? And by 'a long time ago', I mean...before you left the Jedi Order."

Kylo was silent, his eyes now averted and watching the sparks fly as Albrekh sawed a hefty piece of iron in half, pretending he couldn't hear a word that the two of them had said. Kylo knew it was an act; the blacksmith was a man of few words, but only because he let others do the talking for him. Albrekh hears everything.

Finally, Kylo faced Vicrul again. "Yes." he said. "She had done something similar to what you described when she was nothing but a child, couldn't have been more than seven or eight at the time, but even then she knew instinctively how to siphon force energy from another living being. Back then her abilities only seemed to allow her to take away another being's emotions, but it sounds like her powers have certainly matured over time."

Vicrul relaxed a bit, now that he hadn't done anything to incite Kylo's anger; he never knew what would be the next thing to set it off. "Well one thing's for sure, she has next to no control over her power when she uses the Dark Side, at least not with this ability specifically. I felt the shift in the Force when she started stealing my energy- it was like she was drunk with its power. It had been more or less easy to get into her mind at first, but once she-"

"It was easy?" Kylo asked, his voice tinged with something biting that Vicrul couldn't quite place.

"Relatively. Her defenses are strong, there's no denying that, but I can tell she isn't used to multitasking. The moment she shifted her focus to infiltrating my mind, her weaknesses were easy to find."

Kylo nodded for Vic to go on, ignoring the pestering impulse to ask what those weaknesses were. When Kylo had last tried to get inside of his apprentice's head, he had come up empty. He didn't like that his knight knew more about her innermost thoughts than he did.

"She has virtually zero experience with the Dark Side." Vicrul continued. "At least none that precedes her recent exploits." Vicrul paused, unsure if he should quit while he was ahead or push for more answers while Kylo was in a good mood. He went with his instincts.

"When she was draining my energy, I saw a memory in her head- there was a girl who called Gray her padawan."

That got Kylo's attention. His eyes met Vicrul's with pointed determination when he spoke.

"Show me."

***

You laid awake in your bed studying the little light-dagger that you had made from Dorothy's shard of kyber and thought about what gave you any kind of right to name it after her.

Dorothy had been good. She had been kind. She had taken care of you. She had gotten you out of the temple when others had not been so lucky. She had called you padawan when there was no one left to teach you.