Hunted

XII. The Fight

Kylo stood outside the front door of her cottage in the late afternoon light, leaning against the wall outside and taking in his surrounding while the two women inside argued.

He noticed the clothesline from his vision all those years ago, still hanging from the same place. It felt surreal to be here now, to not only see the person he'd thought of constantly for years, but to also see her here, in her natural habitat, the place he had always seen her at in his thoughts and dreams.

Inside, the environment was much less peaceful.

"How can you be so dismissive of him without knowing him at all?"

"Because I thought you were off making eyes with some village boy. I never thought that you could be so reckless!"

"How is it so reckless to follow my own heart? You of all people were the one who raised me to do that! If my heart says to trust him, and if the Light occupies more of my heart than most people like you said, then shouldn't that be enough?"

Reha threw her hands up into the air, exasperated. "You are too young to understand, too innocent, too pure. I raised you that way, here away from all the corruption that I could, so that you could have the things I didn't! So you could grow up to marry someone  and raise your own children in the Light, not to be the pawn of some servant of the Dark!"

"How can you say that when you've barely spoken 2 words to him?" Serela cried in frustration, "You raised me to be kind and forgiving and accepting of everyone, and yet you've left him standing outside like a stray dog!"

Reha paused, knowing her daughter had a point with that, but then she changed the subject, "He will hurt you."

"He has never tried to hurt me!"

"But he will!" her mother hissed at her, lowering her voice at the reminder that he was probably standing directly outside the window listening to everything they said between them.

Serela's crestfallen face blinked at her mother through the tears, "Please... PLEASE mother, just get to know him, let him come in and eat with us. The woman who raised me would have never turned away a guest. She would welcome him in to sit at our table and eat our food, and she would get to know him for who he is, not as he appears."

Her mother turned away from her for a moment to compose herself, but instead found that she had tears of her own to shed.

"He will try to take you away from me," she whispered, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" Serela asked, moving closer to bridge the distance her mother had left between them,and wrapping her arms around her mother's shoulders. "Mother, I'm not going anywhere, my place is here, with you. On Takodana."

She rested her head on her mother's shoulder and felt one of her tears drip onto the back of her hand. Reha took the other hand in her own and kissed it, holding it there as if to remind herself that her daughter was still here, right now she was here with her, in the house Titus had built for them, on the only planet she'd ever known, and even though she saw in her own heart that Serela's words were not true, although she could not know it herself yet, Reha clung to her hand as if she could will away the future that was to come. To somehow alter the course.

But she knew enough to understand that she could not.

"I do not promise to like him, or to accept him, but I will not turn away a hungry guest. You may let him in, and he may sleep here tonight IF he agrees to take the loft in the barn."

She barely had time to catch her daughter's smile before she flung open the door and ran out to retrieve him.

Dinner was moderately awkward, with Kylo complimenting the food and Reha giving short, one-word answers to most of his questions.