Let the Light In

Chapter 12: Episteme

Chapter 12: Episteme

Kylo Ren was distressed, and it was not his typical troubled demeanour that caused him to be so today. The incident two nights back had made him look at the bond in a different way.

He had distinctly felt Rey's pain, and it had left him fitful.

Kylo had spent many hours wrestling with himself before he finally let his other, much older and smaller side win, and reached out to her. Admittedly, he had been terrified of what he would find, his mind plaguing him with fears of grievous injury or untimely demise. The thoughts stung worse than they should have. Only, he had found her unconscious and unguarded, and utterly unharmed. To his surprise, he had been practically pulled into her mind as soon as he had brushed it, leaving him startled and tentative.

It was all a very, very dangerous game.

Her mind was blank in recovery sleep, and Kylo could feel the heaviness of her limbs, indicating that this recovery sleep had been mightily Force-induced. Above that, he had sensed phantom pain still burning in her nerves, perfectly tracing the very real pain that Kylo felt. He had checked again, but Rey was woundless.

It was then he had wrenched himself from her mind. That single, terrifying discovery, seemingly so insignificant, but-

He had sprinted to the archive chamber despite the destroyed state his body was in.

Kylo Ren had torn through the holocrons till he had found something, anything, to disprove the seed of fear in his mind.

Now here he sat, on the cold floor, propped against an empty holocron rack, and with all the other archives strewn about him on the floor. He clutched only one, and stared unseeingly at the information that confirmed his fears beyond a shadow of a doubt.

All a very dangerous game indeed, and he and Rey were the most unwitting of players.

The small snippets of information, so easily lost amidst the sea of knowledge his master had amassed, damned him from the glowing screen where they shone.

The formation of a Force Bond is common between a Master and Padawan... It requires time, and develops slowly...Rarely, it had been observed that powerful Force Bonds occur between two individuals during a moment of extreme intimacy, such as near-death...It is universally accepted that, while thoughts and feelings can be shared over such a Bond intentionally or not, that is where it ends. However, and rarer still than any immediate Bond, and only as the exception, it had been observed that physical pain itself can be relayed. This has been seen by this author in only one instance; when the main subject was wounded rather terribly by a terentatek, and the Bond partner fell to the floor in equal agony. Regretfully, neither made it for further study, as the main subject was killed by the beast, and her partner subsequently...It can be hypothesised for this archive, though only by single study, that this brand of Bond can indeed be fatal to an otherwise perfectly healthy individual.

Over and over in his mind, those goading words repeated.

Powerful bonds.

Physical pain.

Fatal.

Fatal.

Fatal.

If she felt his injuries, did that mean that this bond could prove fatal? The holocron only cited one case, and Kylo knew it was more than likely that their bond was not of that nature.

However, there was still that chance.

He threw the holocron across the room, and it shattered into sparks and shards of metal. Harshly, he wiped his hands over his face, only to find his brow sweaty and feverish. He was not ill, not physically at least. But he was sick to his stomach from this latest development.