"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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I'm indecisively flipping through holo episodes, most of which I've already binged in my time here, when I first feel the slightest disturbance in the force.
The words formulate on my mouth, an explanation, without even a millisecond of critical thought.
An awakening, I whisper to myself.
Light.
Later, I sense the being's presence on this very base, but I'm not sure what to do with the information.
Who is it, and why are they here?
"So, what's new, Freddie? Anything interesting happening on Dream Crusher Base lately?" I innocently attempt to spark conversation as my usual stormtrooper friend enters the room to bring me one of my meals.
"It's the StarKiller, and nothing that I can think of." Replies the trooper, as he routinely places the plate on my bedside table just so I can leave it untouched until he brings the next one. I purse my lips, briefly wondering how I could reword the question to get the answer I truly desire.
"Okay, um. Anyone new onboard? A general maybe? Or a prisoner?" I elaborate, clutching my holo to my chest. He dumps the contents of the plate from the meal before into the trash chute, fixing me with a long, likely curious (it's hard to decipher through the helmet, as I've previously talked about) stare.
"Oh, yeah, Lord Ren has a new prisoner. It's only a scavenger, though. Probably nothing. Don't tell him I told you." He raises his hand as what's supposed to be some kind of wave goodbye, then leaves the room.
A scavenger, huh. What could he possibly want with a scavenger?
And, is there any possibility that this scavenger is the cause of the disturbance I had felt in the force? Unlikely, all things considered. They must be trained, or extremely powerful to set a ripple in the force in this way, and I find it very hard to believe that such strength or any training could be found in a mere scavenger.
Then again, I was some dirty, starving little girl from the slums of Coruscant who had just witnessed the demise of her dearest father when Master Skywalker found me.
The underdogs have proven themselves to be plenty capable of saving this galaxy from darkness on more occasions than I could count.
All of this curiosity is eating away at me!
I'm on my feet and out of the room, carrying myself toward's Kylo's chambers to pester him before I'm even able to process what I'm doing. I know he can answer just about every question flooding my mind, the only challenge lies in my ability to get him to speak on the subject.
As I retrace my steps from the last time I'd set out to find his room, I freeze in my tracks at the sound of his true voice, unmodified, emanating from what seems to be an interrogation room similar to the one I'd been placed in when the First Order originally abducted my Nabooian companions and I.
Oh, Nikana.
I choose to hide just around the bend in the corridor, close enough to listen in and just far enough away to flee without being noticed. As long as he hasn't felt the familiar tug of our connection, that is.
"It's carrying a section of a navigational chart. And we have the rest. Recovered from the archives of the Empire, but we need the last piece. And, somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you. You. A scavenger." He drones on, and I try to make sense of his words. Scavenger? Droid?
Navigational chart?
He couldn't be on the verge of finding-
My thoughts are cut off by the feeling of the scavenger girl's pain washing over me, as she attempts to resist Ren's probing in vain.
"You're so lonely... So afraid to leave... At night, desperate to sleep... You imagine an ocean... I see it... I see the island... And Han Solo... You feel like he's the father you never had. He would have disappointed you." His voice is low, taunting even. I see each image dance across my vision as he names them, as if I'm the one doing the probing.
"Get out of my head." She spits, her speech audibly obstructed by clenched teeth.
I wish then that I could make myself known, shove my way into the room and help her to escape. After all, it would be the right thing to do, and I know so deeply inside of me that she doesn't deserve any of this.
But he is the one person in this entire galaxy that I almost feel completely powerless to.
It's quiet then, and I assume based on the raw power struggle flowing from the room, disturbing the hold of the force around us, that Kylo is attempting to dig deeper, and by something unknown to the scavenger she is trying desperately to shut him out, already practically his equal.
She grunts, and I feel his mind open, just a moment of weakness as he struggles to search the girl's mind. I take the chance to pry and sift through his own thoughts of boredom from sitting through meetings with command and typical everyday things.
Then I hear a single thought he had uttered aloud, possibly to himself, as clearly as if he were whispering it chillingly into my ear, his breath tickling the tendrils of curly hair near my temple.
"I feel it again... the pull to the light."
My heart pounds erratically at my rib cage at the revelation , every inch of my body is suddenly littered with goosebumps. I almost can't believe it. I attempt to look further when both he and I are ripped back into reality by the voice of the scavenger, thick with struggle.
"You, you're afraid... that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader." Accuses the girl.
Through our connection I feel the effect the words have on him, and the wind is knocked out of me. I remember, all those years ago, when he had first discovered that Anakin Skywalker was Leia's father and the hurt he had felt that she, his own mother, had kept it from him, but despite the relation, to idolize Vader now in such a way is, well, frankly ridiculous.
The sound of boots, pounding with purpose in my exact direction, is enough to send me scurrying back towards my chambers.
"Lord Ren, the Supreme Leader requests your presence immediately." A voice I don't recognize utters this, but I don't wait to hear Ren's response as I slip back into my room with the hope that he hadn't noticed my presence at any point of the exchange.
I slump to my bed, trying hard to process everything I had just witnessed in the span of about 10 minutes, which already told me more than anything I had hoped I could've squeezed out of Kylo, if I had spoke to him in his chambers like I had originally planned.
In all of it, there is one thing I can't forget, even if I tried. I think of the words, and my chest grows warm. My cheeks are flushed and rosy in a way they hadn't been in years.
