Where Light and Darkness Meet (Part One of the Pallona Saga)

XIII

Chapter XIII
Defeat

It must be days later when I wake up. I'm in a large room furnished with a metal chair in one corner, a round table in the other, and a window on the wall to the right of my bed. Looking out, I see I'm in space, which means I'm on a First Order Star Destroyer still under Ben Solo's—and Snoke's—watch.
No, I think. Not Ben Solo. He's proven to me that he is truly Kylo Ren.
I get out of bed, my muscles aching and my head still throbbing from hitting metal so hard. I spot a small mirror laying on the table, I pick it up to inspect my appearance.
I'm absolutely haggard. My arms are burnt and covered in bandages, my face is slightly burnt as well, but not as badly. I never thought myself as vain—I couldn't be vain as a Jedi—but I still knew I was a pretty girl. Seeing my face and body all burned and bandaged makes me worry that I'll never get my true beauty back. When I turn my head so that I can see my back, I gasp. My hair used to fall down a little ways below my shoulder blades. Now, though, it's singed from the explosion so that it barely touches my shoulders. My hair was my most prized possession besides my lightsaber, and now that it's gone I feel a part of myself is missing, too.
I start to cry. I was wondering when it would finally hit me, and I guess it took losing my hair to shove me over the edge. I cry over my appearance, I cry because I miss home, because I miss my mother and brother, and mostly because of how defeated I am. I was finally getting somewhere, but for the two steps I managed to take forward, Kylo Ren just forced me back a dozen more. All I want in the whole galaxy is to go back to Ahch-To where my only worries were how bored I was going to be the next day and how much Master Skywalker was grieving. I'll go as far to say that I'd rather be back on Zeffo watching my mother die than have to feel this defeated. At least then, the Force was leading me somewhere where there was hope, a future. Now, I feel nothing and I can't find hope anywhere.
I came here a month ago to turn Ben Solo. Instead, Kylo Ren has turned me. I will not revert to the dark side like he did, I'm not so weak. But I have become a shell of myself. He has taken my energy, my hope...and my hair. The latter may sound petty, but it was a piece of me that he has managed to strip away. The explosion probably wasn't even him, but I still blame him.
I remember an eternity ago when Ren told me he knew what he had to do. I went on thinking he meant that he was going to find a way to turn or rebel against Snoke. I wasn't expecting him to realize that he needed to prove his allegiance to the dark side and kill Han Solo.
I hate him. I don't want him dead, but I want him to suffer the way he has made me suffer. I am no longer his friend, but I don't think I could truly be his enemy. Instead, I will be his prisoner, I will find a way to help the Resistance. And most importantly, I will not become the Jedi Kylo Ren thinks I am or even the Jedi Master Skywalker wants me to be. I will become the Jedi I've always wanted to be. And I might have to break a few sacred Jedi rules to do it.