Will You Love Me? (A Medieval Reylo AU)

ƇӇƛƤƬЄƦ 1

ƛ gentle breeze blew across the meadow, causing the tall grass and the wildflowers that covered it to dance.

A young woman, nineteen years of age sat down in the grass. She plucked three blades of grass from the earth and began braiding them together. It was a useless, fruitless task but she was happy for any distraction.

Rey was grateful that the king and queen had given her a job and a room to stay in at the castle. Working as the Queen's handmaiden was easy compared to her previous life of stealing, scavenging, and hunting for a meager meal.

What was hard about living in the castle was King Han and Queen Leia. They were kind, but they would often speak of their son. A man whose name she wished that she would never have to hear again... Kylo Ren.

Twelve years ago she had witnessed him kill her father in battle, it was something she couldn't forgive and it was certainly something she would never forget.

As she'd gotten to know King Han and Queen Leia, she'd come to realize that they were nothing like their son. She didn't understand why their son would betray them when they were so kind and wonderful.

Rey's mind wandered to the moments before she'd come out to the meadow.

She had been helping the queen get ready and they had talked as they often did. Rey had become just as much a companion to her as a handmaiden.

Rey couldn't even remember how the subject had come up, but she'd confessed to stealing food a few times. Especially when she was a child to survive. She wasn't proud of it, but she'd built up a level of trust with the king and queen, she knew that they wouldn't hold her actions as a starving child against her.

Queen Leia didn't seem at all fazed by the revelation, she'd probably suspected it.

As if to keep from embarrassing her or making her feel uncomfortable, Queen Leia had laughed slightly as she changed the subject. "I remember when my son, Ben was little, he used to steal food from the kitchen sometimes. One time he snuck into the kitchen and tried to steal a pie that was cooling on the windowsill, but he was too small to reach it. He tried to climb up on the table to grab it, but he fell and got hurt pretty badly."

The king and queen always called him the name they had given him at birth. A name most had forgotten. The boy named Ben was gone, replaced by a cruel man they called Kylo Ren.

Rey hadn't wanted to talk about him, every time she thought about him she remembered the moment he had killed her father; but for the king and queen's sake, she said nothing. They loved their son. How could she break their hearts by telling them what he had done, the pain he had caused her?

She had fought to hide her emotions as she replied to the queen. "Did he get in trouble?"

"Well, I was mad at him, but when I saw how badly he had been hurt I realized that he had already paid for his mistake. He needed me to love him at that moment."

Clearly, he didn't learn from his mistakes, she thought. "Did he do it again?"

Queen Leia shook her head. "He was a good boy most of the time. He made mistakes but everyone does. I only wish that I hadn't..."

Rey had looked at her, wondering what she had been about to say; but the queen had grown quiet after that seeming to be lost in thought.

"I wish that I could just bring him back home," Leia said finally.

Rey felt cruel because of what she had been thinking when the queen said that; that she didn't want him to come back so that she wouldn't have to see him ever again. She wished that he would fall in battle as her father had; it was what he deserved for what he had done. The world would be better off without him.