Poe groped for a handhold in the pitch black, something, anything to guide him and give this endless darkness shape and contour. A beat, and then it felt just like his mother teaching him to fly, her strong, cool hand over his as he explored the controls, imparting a subtly and skill to his first efforts that surely wouldn't have been there without her patience teachings. He found the rough hewn wall, and not for the first time he wondered who or what had shaped this place.
He descended down the spiral described into the earth, not so much as a ruler might descend to show off his finery, but as a supplicant might start crawling towards their destination weary but damned determined.
The next vision didn't exactly catch him by surprise, the ripple in the air, the way his feet felt disconnected from the path. His head felt as though it were literally in the clouds, tenuously sewn to his body by an unraveling thread. Tenebrous tendrils reached for him, and then into him. He found himself standing in a place he recognized as outside his parent's house, but it was of such a dimension and character that it telescoped in and out, at once completely recognizable and so huge that it seemed to go on forever.
Poe looked around. Why here? He didn't have to wait long; through the fresh grass came a child, one he knew well. Ben Solo, at about eight years of age, holding an X-Wing model in one hand, a plush bantha in the crook of his other arm. Even as a youth he had arresting eyes, and striking true-black hair that curled endearingly around his serious face.
I should hate you, Poe thought, the words rueful. He felt he should, for all the atrocities, everything Ben had done and been complicit in. Not the least of which violating his mind and having First Order goons beat him. And yet, what did he see? The child, the child who could have chosen any path. He wanted to reach into the vision and change the flow of reality somehow, turn some vital switch that would make Ben turn around and go back.
The scene rippled again, and this time he saw Kylo Ren as an adult. No, not Kylo; as the figure drew back its hood, he saw that half of his face wore a shadow like a veil, the silver of that damnable mask glittering the way the carapace of a deadly insect glitters as its wings flare. The other half...Ben. He could still see Ben there. He looked...looked...desperate.
Poe closed his eyes tight, a little moan of misery coming from the lips he'd pressed into a grim line when he'd first entered the vision.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a desert, the red sand under his boots and in the air clinging to him in a fine carmine layer. Something he could only call elemental evil radiated from the very core of this world, dread rushing into him as plentiful as roaring spring rivers with none of the joy and life a real river would have represented. This time he didn't see Kylo Ren or Ben Solo, but a woman in a white dress, the vision shimmering with heat as he stepped towards her.
Leia?
But no, he could see by the cant of her head and the way she held herself that it was not the woman he'd come to think of as, if not a mother, a wise and implacable guide. For that matter, was it his mother? That was closer, but not the whole truth. This woman had the indistinct quality of a Force ghost, and as he got near enough to touch her she turned to him.
He thought the sheer terror of this place could very well undo him, but he focused on her as a beacon of normalcy. The closer he got the more apparent her predicament became. Black threads had grown into and around her glow, rendering her mute and motionless. Her throat worked as if she wanted to speak to him and couldn't. He ran the last few steps.
"Hey," he said, "hey, how do I fix this?" He put up his hands as if he could feel around for a switch or something that would free her, as if he were trying to dump psi from a pressure release valve that fought him at every turn, the wheel slipping and abrading his palms.
