Hunted

XIII. The Proposal

Kylo woke at first light as he'd said he would, still unused to being awakened by the sunlight after months aboard a ship in the middle of space.

He stretched his limbs in the hay and noticed how well rested he felt, surprisingly considering the bed he'd slept on here versus on the ship.

Rising quickly, he had left the barn and headed down the path heading straight for Serela's cottage, wasting no time.

When he knocked at the door Serela had been the one to open it, smiling sheepishly with bleary-eyes, clearly fresh from waking up. She pecked her mother on the cheek who regarded him warily and wished him a halfhearted 'safe travels,' before concentrating on kneading the dough rolled out on the table in front of her.

Serela grabbed a basket, the same she'd been carrying the morning he'd first seen her, and followed him on the door, shutting it softly behind her.

All night before sleep claimed him he had mulled over what he would say to her, how he would try and convince her to return with him this morning, not wanting to alarm her, but not wanting to leave her with any doubt about his intentions.

Snoke had sent him here with instructions to retrieve her without delay, but as they walked along in peaceful, companionable silence, he reminded himself of what he had decided last night. He would not take her by force, if she was going to come with him eventually, it must be of her own free will or not at all.

Strange, he noted, that for a man so accustomed to taking whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, he would waver now on this most important of missions. Here was the girl he had spent 15 years waiting to find, looking for her in every face he passed, searching for her in crowded streets and distant planets, always looking, searching, waiting.

And now he was about to leave here without her.

Serela held the question her mother had posed to her last night and turned it over in her mind, weighing his possible answers and their implications. To think that he had never killed anyone was unlikely, and very foolish. While she did not know much about the First Order, she was aware they were well known for their ruthlessness and brutality.

Once Kylo's ship came into view they both noted that the other seemed to walk slower, as if trying to stave off the moment they would have to separate, likely, in her mind, forever.

When they finally stood before it and Serela looked up at the pilot's seat she had sat with him in yesterday, she did not notice that now he was staring at her, his eyes in earnest.

"Here," she said abruptly, thrusting the basket towards him, "Take this for the trip back."

Curious, Kylo looked inside, finding a piece of fruits, two rolls and some cheese. A meal for the journey home.

There was a small piece of blue inside too, the flower she'd worn behind her ear yesterday.

Heartened by this display of affection, he finally chanced to ask what he had come all this way to accomplish.

"Serela, come with me," he asked, "You could leave this place and come to my ship. I know it would be different, but there would be so much you could do there, so many people to meet and places to see... and we could spend every day together... as friends."

She paused, that last part told her she was right, he must only see her as a young girl from an undomesticated planet, feral and untamed here in her land of wild forest and deep lakes.

"I...can't. I'm needed here Kylo, my mother, the children, my village..."

"What if I need you?" he asked pointedly, and she felt the conversation suddenly seem to crackle with electricity.