Sanctuary of the Wanderer

Chapter 3

"Control yourself," spoke the general, addressing the other with an overlapping remembrance of a distant rival.

It seemed to him that as time passed, his power diminished against those whose nature it was to take what they wanted, irreverent to the laws of the society to which they owed their position. Even as the thought crossed through his mind, he was aware of a flaw in its reasoning – these men, those of the cast of Ren and the pilot, would not hesitate to claim their authority even if it were not rightly bestowed upon them as their due. They owed little and made others their debtors – their loyalty was to their ideals, first and foremost. They were their own grand leaders, and bowed to no earthly authority which sought to avert their course, like a bloodhound who had picked up the scent and would not hear the call of the hunter's horn.

Regardless of what realm they were thrown upon, their will to power, unlike his own, was resilient to the rise and fall of fortune – hardly needing the approval of a master to proceed. Fate might heave unfavorable circumstances onto their path that would have left him impotent, yet they would brashly throw the entire weight of their force to obliterate them, or else themselves be destroyed. Whether out of a conviction of their own invincibleness or a disregard for their own mortality, he could only conjecture. Having been raised to advance in obedience to superior powers, Hux believed that he would falter and sink low once the odds stacked too heavily against him, caring too much for the preservation of the territory which had already been conquered to risk losing it in a single bout.

To Hux, status and authority had long been the end itself. Thus, the other aims and principles with which his work had been justified were but orbiting satellites of politics, relegated to being the means of rising in the esteem of the disgruntled voice that still murmured in his ear, lest he should embarrass himself.

General Hux hesitated for a moment before turning away from Dameron and going forth to examine the room. It was his pressing desire to scrutinize every inch of the claustrophobic space within which he was confined, reminding him of a storage facility, so bare were its walls. Certainly there was a door of some sort through which they had been deposited within the cube, however well masked. Since time was the only resource bestowed on them, he reasoned to make the most of it - while he still had strength and life enough.

"I'm sorry Hux, I do not know why I...I mean sure, there are times when I would have like to strangle a –" Poe uttered his half formed thoughts, wishing to dispel the silence which gave weight to the recent proceedings.

He trusted to the predominant emotion of shame to make itself coherent and sincere, yet it was not Hux's forgiveness that he truly needed, but his own. He could not fully comprehend why he had felt so near to hysteria, for there was nothing close at hand which seemed to wish him harm, nothing worse than the slight figure of the general, who seemed to find Poe hardly worth his regard.

"Something had shaken my brains – this place, we will find a way to get out of here," he continued. "I mean, if you're willing to put aside our anonymity for the time being," Dameron brushed the imaginary dust off his clothing, as though to symbolize a fresh start.

"Yes, we shall let it be so," Hux answered, turning to the wall which he had previously been occupied with examining, pressing his ear to it while he firmly knocked against the metal. He listened to the sound of a consistently unpromising surface.

After another lapse into silence, Poe was left to mull over the question that continued to irk him, debating whether to let it go for the time being and join Hux in his search, or else get the truth out of him. There was something provoking in the other man's cold manner, making the oppressing thought all the more unbearable.

"Were you able to read my thoughts?" Poe asked, quite aware of how mad the question sounded the moment that he heard himself speak it, yet his curiosity was too great to leave the thought unturned. For how could he feel himself at ease in such a state, when not only his deeds and his words, but his very thoughts, regardless of their content, might be open to the scrutiny of a figure he could hardly term as empathetic to human foibles.

It was like having another conscience, an angle on one shoulder, a devil on the other, and then – General Hux. Three was company.

Hux stopped what he was doing and turned to Poe again, hesitating before he spoke.

"Yes," he answered at last, "only for a moment."

"And I yours," Poe affirmed. "Can you still do it now?"

"No," Hux said curtly.

"Neither can I," the pilot felt greater assurance in the truth of the other's reply mainly by the fact of his own inability. "Well, that's that then. Doesn't it bother you though? Or at least, aren't you curious why or how it happened?"

Hux did not have a ready reply to the other's question, nor did he wish to discuss the matter with him, hardly feeling that he should choose Dameron as the object of his confidence.

"I know as little about it as you do, as you already know"

"Yes – I remember sensing that you were afraid," said Poe, not meaning to provoke the other but rather, to lay bear some morsel of what he had seen.

"As were you commander," said General Hux.

"I think it has to do with why we are here," Poe went on.

"I think so too," Hux said blithely, returning to his task of searching the cell.

"What do you think in means? Why would they – I don't know what to call it, but there's something that has changed. Maybe it is not as horrific as I first imagined, now that I can think clearly, but I need to know what it is before I can let it rest, unlike you who seem not to care that someone might have been prodding in your head."

"Let us not waste time."

"But I suppose they're used to that in the First Order," Dameron chuckled, somewhat annoyed with the other man.

"It is not that I do not care Dameron. Although there is no one else in sight, I am in not the person who is able to offer you comfort or explanation," said Armitage, not knowing why he felt obliged to justify himself. "I suggest that you make yourself useful, if you can."

"I believe you misunderstand me then. But go on, I won't distract you Hux," Dameron said, seeing that the other was, if not hostile, then at least not in the mood to converse. He tried to hide the terse mood visible upon his brow, aggravated with both the general and himself.

Poe paced about the small chamber, letting his eyes stray to the single source of light on the ceiling before sitting down and trying to focus his thoughts on coming up with another plan, lest Hux's investigation uncovered nothing. He trusted the general to be more thorough with the task than he himself would have been.