When the Day Loved the Night (On Temporary Hiatus!)

His Oasis

He was a desert.

"There is something wrong with him, Han, in here- in his heart!"

The scrawny child's gaze flickered upward to the sound of his parents bickering, unaware of the boy hidden behind dark tresses who listened keenly.

"Send him to Luke, then! I don't know how else you want to fix him!"

The boy hugged his wiry legs to his chest and shoved his seven-year-old face into them.

He needed fixing...?

They're simply afraid of you, child.

The teeny boy flinched and cowered away from the voice- that voice.

"I don't want them to be afraid of me," he whimpered and choked on a muffled sob. With terrified hesitation, the boy lifted his eyes and scoured the room for his teacher, this voice, but his tears blurred what little he could see in the darkened room. Vision needed not aid him, however, as a shiver rippled through him alongside his master's rolling tongue.

Fear is our ally, boy- to bring those who oppose us to their knees with one fleeting command, don't you see? You will grow to understand, dear child; Fear is power.

The boy clenched his eyelids shut in a catastrophic cry.

He glimpsed a man. He could feel the vile solitude radiating from the ebony robes veiling his leering figure, masked by a battered piece of metal. Inside the boy loomed the pulsing of fear.

He spotted his father. Through the boy's own gloved hands, he fell into a chasm below, drifting away in brutal silence.

He could see his mother, ancient and wise as she always had been just before a searing line of fire consumed the building above her and left the base in a pile of ash and rubble, despite his shouts of warning.

He saw a girl. She was tattered, beaten, and dirty, but she was beautiful. Her chestnut hair fell in stringy wisps upon the sides of her face while a familiar loneliness beamed from a foreign chain linking his heart to hers.

He sucked in a breath, desperate to call-

You... You feel it, too?

However, the boy had forgotten he was a desert, and surely she could be only a mirage.

He saw a woman, a warrior, a Jedi. The man from before stood behind her, his robes swirling in the wind between the two. The boy gaped in horror as the man toyed with the hilt of a weapon in his hand until it hissed with the release of its crimson blade.

Fear is our ally, boy.

The man hesitated, but raised his bloody saber even so.

Fear is power.

"Ren?"

Kylo flinched, readjusting his gaze to spy Rey in front of him. She pursed her lips and reached a hand to situate the jingling belt on her hips before she lifted her waiting stare back to him.

She'd asked him a question.

Ren lowered his gaze as he tugged at the thrumming energy between them, searching for any indication of her question, but he feigned distracted by her hands, tussling with her attire once again.

He examined her thoughtfully.

Rey wore a dress, far more ornate than the robes they had given her before. It twisted around her in sheets of velvet black, held against her body by a single band of silver diamonds hooked tightly just above her waist. A similar string of jewels fell upon her collarbone and weaved an intricate pattern of gems, which covered her entire neck. Her hair tumbled gracefully to her shoulders in lazy waves, and Ren noted that it was the first time he'd glimpsed Rey with her hair down. Beneath her hazel locks, a cluster of diamonds shimmered solemnly against her ears.