"Only in the darkness can you see stars."
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It has been six years since Ben Solo succumbed to his fate and betrayed the Jedi Order after being seduced by the Dark Side. With the aid of his immense power, the First Order has cast a shadow over the g...
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The next few days play out so similarly that they blur together, rendering it impossible to discern one day from the next.
Nikana, Sheva and I barely talk. I look at nothing, my gaze out of focus, as if I'm some kind of droid with a fried hyperdrive.
Sheva cries for her son, and Nikana attempts to keep a firm grasp on all of our sanities, forever the selfless one. It is what made her such a formidable queen to her people.
I told them nothing of Ben, that night after I returned. I wept until the tears no longer came, sobbed even after they were gone, until my throat became dry and scratchy, and I fell into restless sleep.
Ben and I play as children, spiritedly battling as the warriors we had hoped we would become one day.
A Ben who is only a few years younger than he is now calls me his stars and kisses my forehead, as gently as if he fears that I would shatter into fragments of weathered glass in his rough hands.
Our vivid memories haunt my dreams, constantly and mercilessly reminding me of the origin to the nightmare my life had become.
On the fifth day, the girls finally begin to ask questions.
"What did that wretched man do to you?" Nikana is the first to break the deafening, never ending silence. She must've mustered up the resolve while she rubbed my shoulders comfortingly, for what felt like hours.
He ruined me, is what I want to say.
"He showed me things, of my father. He got inside my head and read my mind as if it were a mere storybook." I lie, knowing my words are entirely believable because these are the things that tireless, power-hungry beast are known for.
Even though I made it up, I still wouldn't put it past him to torture me further using the only other man in my life that I had truly loved.
"I'm sorry, Hale. Your father must have meant a lot to you." My sweet friend sits back, hugging her bony knees, resting her chin over them. With what little we had been given to eat here, her nimble body had already grown impossibly thinner.
I let my mind wander fondly to the father I had known as a child, a man called Fabian Escara. I can barely remember his face anymore, but his proud, crooked smile is one image that will never leave me, even when I've grown old and grey. In my heart, I know that.
"My father was a smuggler, before I was born. Everyone liked him. He had some scraggly dog named Wolf, and an old beat up droid. He worked so hard, but he always told me that the most important thing in the entire galaxy, to him, was that I was happy." I voice, noticing I had managed to garner Sheva's attention. My two friends smile for me, and I no longer feel so bleak. I am grateful that they had managed to lead my mind on to other things.
If only that feeling could've lasted longer than one bloody moment.
The door to the holding cell slides open, a stormtrooper waiting initially on the other side. He steps away, and behind him emerges a man clothed all in black, the silver of his mask glittering menacingly in the ship's artificial lighting.
"Lyra," The deep, metallic modified voice starts.
"Get behind me." I order to my friends, who quickly comply. "Leave us alone, you monster." I growl, shakily getting to my feet to stand my ground at full height.
"Come with me." He continues, as if I had said nothing.
"No." I deny without any hesitation.
"Be careful!" Sheva breathes in horror, and from the corner of my eye I can tell she's visibly petrified. Nikana squeezes my shoulder in warning.
"I am leaving this ship and you are to come with me." His shoulders are rigid, and although I know him well, possibly better than anyone, his emotions are hard to decipher while he's wearing that stupid mask.
He has no right to order me around! Anger bursts inside of me, flushing my cheeks and fueling the source of my rash decision-making.
"Where do you plan to take me? To terrorize innocent children?" I spit, narrowing my eyes. His gloved hands ball into fists.
"Grab her." He says to the stormtroopers, who approach me immediately.
In that split second, without logical thought, I stupidly decide to reveal what had been hidden under the skirts of my dress this whole time.
My lightsaber roars to life, and all other sounds surrounding me stop almost immediately, save for its telltale hum. The blue glow it casts on the stormtrooper's armor is almost blinding.
Then, all hell breaks loose.
Nikana and Sheva scream in horror as the troopers fire their blasters to protect their superior from the enemy. I deflect the blasts, reveling in the way I fluidly move my weapon as if it's just an extension of my arm- a result of my extensive training. It feels good to finally use it again.
6 years ago, I could never beat him in a spar. But things are different now.
Ren yells in frustration, his voice modifier making the sound all the more terrifying. I approach him fast, forcing him to prepare to deflect me.
When I catch sight his long fingers grasping a huge, crackling red cross guard saber, I gasp, the sight throwing me off my game. I had grown so accustomed to seeing one that was blue, exactly like my own.
This little hesitation is what opens me up, no longer on guard for the duration of time that it takes me to suck in a breath, and the discharge of a blaster hits me square in the thigh.
I howl in pain, pressing my fingers to the wound and pulling them away at the sting.
It doesn't stop me.
I slam my blue saber head on with his red one. We slash at each other for seconds that feel as if they drag on for hours. Sparks begin to fly as we carelessly cut through machinery around us, and even though there are troopers and prisoners all around us, it feels like we are the only two left in the galaxy, fueled by 6 long years of pent up anger and despair.
"This is senseless, Lyra. Your enemies surround us. Even if you could strike me down you will have to surrender to them." His voice reasons over the deafening noise, while deflecting another blow and cutting at me fatally in return.
"When you say enemies, Kylo, do you include yourself?" I cry, my arms shaking as I desperately try to hold him off. His masked face is dangerously close to mine, and although the mask is void of discernible eyes I can feel his deep brown ones boring into my own.
"The trade deal has gone through. If you come with me now, I will send your friends back to Naboo, unharmed." His next words are quieter, but I hear them as clearly as if he had shouted them. Chin wobbling, I know exactly what I must do.
Let go, I mouth, and he does just that.
I steal a look back at Nikana and Sheva as they cower in the cell, taking in everything that had just played out before them.
Without the burning determination powering me, my knees weaken at the searing pain in my throbbing blaster wound. Ren manages to grab my arm before I can collapse. He takes my deactivated lightsaber from my grasp, then roughly hands me off to a pair of stormtroopers, commanding them to follow him.
"I hate you." I hiccup sincerely, as they drag me away.
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