Darkness At Dawn • Kylo Ren [1]

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"I was purple long before you decided you wanted the lilac sky."

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The girl stood with her hip jutted to one side, her right arm draped across her slender body, clasping the elbow opposite. Her brown eyes hadn't blinked for a very long time and all Ben wanted was a window into her mind. It took him awhile since he was rather new to mind reading but soon enough, her thoughts became his own.

Elara whirled around and kicked him to the ground when she figured out what he was doing, keeping her foot on his chest. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Clearly you know or you wouldn't have dropped me on my ass." Ben grunted.

"Touché." Elara nodded, releasing him from the weight of her foot and helping him up.

"Is it really that hard for you two not to fight?" Vega questioned, rolling her eyes.

"I wouldn't call it fighting." Elara admitted, dropping her gaze to the floor. "Just simple pestering."

Palace entered the small shack that the young padawan's were hiding in with two wooden logs. Her purple hair was drenched from the cold rain that poured outside and her lips had turned a light shade of blue. The heat from the campfire seemed to be sucked into the frigid air before ever reaching their frozen hands. They added more wood and poked it with long sticks. It seemed to die a little as if unsure of itself, unready to devour the new offerings but after awhile, it found it's confidence and grew until the heat warmed them, orange flames danced amongst them, lighting the darkness. It would have to last through the night. Someone would have to stay up and nurse it through the darkening night so they would not freeze.

It wasn't unusual that the new padawan's plans had gone horribly wrong. They strayed away from Master Skywalker in hopes of finding their kyber crystals themselves. All was going fine until the rain hit and Vega started blaming Dez and Ben for getting them lost. Elara, not much older than thirteen, was able to find shelter before the rain really began to pour.

Dez poked the fire with a stick. "I'm hungry."

"You should have thought about that before you got us lost laser brains." Vega hugged herself, trying to shield away the cold air.

"It's not like I meant to." Dez stuck his tongue out. "I was just merely following Ben."

"Don't blame this on me." Ben snarled back. "I just wanted to find my crystal."

"All the other padawan's are probably with Master Skywalker, finishing the last touches to their lightsaber." Palace huffed, clearly agitated.

"Oh cry about it." Ben sat close to the fire, the light reflecting in his eyes.

Elara watched the rain fall down to the ground with amusement, tuning out her fellow companions with ease. She didn't like rain muc, which was unusual since she came from a planet that was all sand and no precipitation. "I don't like rain."

"Neither do I." Dez moped. "It's cold and wet."

"I love rain just not when we are stranded and starving." Vega piped up.

Elara looked down at the fire. "Rain is the planet's way of crying."

Ben couldn't help but look upon Elara with a small smile. "Is that why you think?"

Elara shrugged. "That's what my mother told me when I was younger, she used to tell me a poem she learnt from when she was my age." Elara toyed with her fingers, thinking of the words. "Quando incipit pluvia, cover nos, et abscondita, hoc solum dicere planetas, et regeneratione, et me non morietur."

"English please."

"When it begins to rain, cover us and hide. For this is the planet's way of saying, let me rebirth and not die." Elara looked over at Ben. "Kind of dark if you look at it literally but in other ways, it's beautiful."

Dez immediately jumped up. "Look!"

The young padawan's turned their heads to the shining object hidden amongst the trees and rocks before them. "Is that a crystal?"

"Impossible." Vega gaped. "They aren't supposed to be located anywhere near here."

"A crystal shows themselves to a Jedi who is worthy." Palace pondered, looking amongst them. "How do we tell who it's for?"

Ben leant against the beam of the small shack. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Clearly not since we are having this discussion." Vega snapped at him, still unimpressed with him.

"It's for Elara."

Dumbfounded, Elara's jaw dropped and she blinked in disbelief. "What have I done to deserve one so early in our travels?"

Knowingly, Ben only raised his shoulders to shrug.

"Go get it Elara!" Vega cheered, pushing Elara into the cold rain.

Elara stumbled out, the water nipping at her bare skin. Within seconds, her hair was drenched and she felt as if she had opened her mouth to speak, she would of drowned. She knew her friends were watching her closely so she could not turn back and cower away from her destiny.

With a heart beating extremely fast, Elara took her first steps towards to the small family of trees and rocks. The glowing crystal came into clear view and she jumped at it with a lunge, toppling into a thorn bush but all the while, clasping the kyber crystal with her hand. For a second, she laid there, trying to grasp onto both the puncturing pain and the shining colour.

It was purple.

Elara woke with a gasp.

Sweat stuck to her like glue and she felt her heart rate slow down. She rubbed her tired eyes with a groan, shortly realizing that Kylo was awake beside her.

"A nightmare?" He questioned, his face puzzled.

She nodded, heaving in another breath of air. "I'm okay though, I'll be fine."

"Was it about Bellamy and Jude?"

Elara shook her head, turning to her side to face Kylo. "No, thank goodness. I feel at peace when I think of them so I know that everything is fine."

"Was it a vision?"

Once again, Elara shook her head. "A memory."

Kylo raised his brow, urging her to share.

"It was when we found my kyber crystal in the woods." She whispered, scared to mention Kylo as his younger self.

"I remember."

"When we parted from Master Skywalker and got lost and it began to rain and-"

"Enough." He silenced her. "I will not hear anymore about Skywalker."

Sighing, she stopped talking. She saw no point in arguing if she truly wanted him to believe she had joined him. Elara rested her head against Kylo's chest and he began to play with her brown curls. "Snoke has given me permission to hire a bounty hunter to take Bellamy and Jude away from the Resistance."

Elara did not reply.

"His name is Sobek-Re Paladin." Kylo continued. "Apparently he's quite the big shot but I will not believe anything until Bellamy and Jude are with us..."

But Elara was already fast asleep.