Across the Stars (Reylo fanfiction)

Flint and Steel

Kylo walked in the light circle of light cast by his sabre. Cracks lined the clay walls of the buildings and most had long lost large chunks of their rooves to the ravages of time. Apart from the sound of his footfalls, the alley around him was utterly silent. Who had lived here? He wondered glancing up at the structures narrowing their arches towards him. Immediately, he shook his head. They didn't matter. All that mattered was Rey. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Everything he had endured in his youth -- with his parents, with his uncle; all he had gritted his teeth through in the long years under Snoke; everything he had carved out with bloodied hands in the wake of his former master's demise. It would all come to nothing if she died before she could see the glory in his vision for their union.

His chest grew tight at the thought of her. Rey, the scavenger. Rey, from nowhere. A whisper slithered through to the surface of his mind: his Rey. The dark knight remembered the way that her eyes had shone like some kind of primordial warrior goddess as she fought the scarlet cloaked guards. As she fought for him. Recalling the sight forced his breath to catch. A shiver ran through his body. Then he tightened his grip on his weapon's hilt as he was assaulted by the moment that his heart had soared of its own accord as if carried by a wave of the sea as she had extended her hand towards him and then, no more than a second later, it being crashed and pummelled in the dumping torrent as it was revealed that she reached not for him but to arm herself against his most ardent desire. Flinching, he tried to block what came next but it rolled before his memory as if was a ship set to autopilot. Again he felt the heat from the shower of sparks and flames around him juxtaposed against the all-consuming hollow cold within his chest cavity as he had realised that she had abandoned him in the wake of the blast of shattering kyber. He saw again the red light that had clouded his vision descending to Crait and the swirling spectres of every nameable emotion pulling loose the threads that weaved together the fabric of his mind.

Breathing heavily, Kylo leaned against the outside wall of one of the decrepit dwellings. He remembered spending a solid week after that battle, and the Falcon door sealing her from his sight, locked alone in his quarters aboard the Finalizer. He forwent bathing, hardly ate. Most of his days slunk around him as he lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling whilst a part of him was drawn dangerously towards his sabre. He either spent those nights flinging his body from side to side tormented by the taste of the dream that had slipped so callously through his fingers or locked within the frostbitten grasp of endless nightmares. Then on the seventh evening, the characteristic pew, pew of blaster shots echoed in his ears. Breaking down his door, chrome domed stormtroopers had charged into his apartments -- gun barrels pointed towards him. As they swarmed around him and reached to put him in binders, one word filled his brain: Hux. Only three letters long, but that single syllable snapped him from his stupor and ignited his veins with burning steel. Twisting his face into a grimace, resolve hardened in the very fibres of his muscles as he flung off his assailants. Seething with the light of a provoked viper, he hacked through the usurping soldiers with the rippling energy of his sabre blade. Then, surrounded by cloven corpses, Kylo Ren had stared out the window at the vast expanse of space. This was his place; this was his destiny. Whipping around, he flung his smelly clothes off and into the laundry shoot. Jumping into his shower, he lathered soap across his skin under the scalding water and shampooed his hair -- all the while his mind sharpening on his plan. After cladding himself in clean robes, he had stalked through the halls and corridors of the ship to the bridge. Hux's face had almost turned as red as his ruthlessly gelled hair as he spluttered and begged beneath the wait of Kylo's force choke.

"My lord," the general had gasped, "I had ... nothing ... to ... do with ... that." His protests, however, held the same effect as a squirt gun against a towering wildfire. With a flick of his wrist and a smirk of his lips, Lord Ren began his campaign to become the ultimate power in the galaxy.

Except there had been one problem. Try as he might attempt to harden his mind, she continued to slither into his thoughts. Who was he kidding? She owned his thoughts! Whether in meetings with his knights, conducting business in his new throne room, even training by himself in his private villa, it was as if the scent of her essence lingered around him as doggedly as his own shadow. All of this had slammed him into silent acknowledgment that he could as soon give up his quest to win her favour as cease breathing. He would shake the foundations of the stars themselves and remake the constellations if that was what it took! And when he offered again, she would not refuse.

The Lord of the Knights of Ren stood away from the wall and narrowed his gaze on the piece of parchment in his hand. He exhaled slowly and moved to follow where the thin line indicated his direction was to be. Walking down the street, he noticed that the buildings were increasing in size. Terraces now lined their upper levels. He moved into a neighbourhood with cobbled rather than dirt paths -- though many of the stones were chipped, moved out of place, or just plain missing. He came to a square with a fountain in the centre. Some bird-like quadruped beast fashioned the now dry waterspout. Lifting his gaze, he saw that over the tops of the buildings, illuminated by an orange glow and breaking the horizon, he saw a tiered structure looming. Glancing down at the map again, he noted that this was the way in which he needed to trek. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders and then jogged towards his destiny.

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