epidemiology | EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

BENDED TIME

As outlined in the OOC post, things start to slow down and grow quiet in Oska for a few days as the bugs crawl away and slowly disappear. But then the cocoons hatch. Fully grown temporal insects claw their way out of them, each about the size and temperament of raging bulls.

They come out far more aggressive and eager to fight, are are willing to take on anything that moves with jaws and claws alike. Except, of course, another insect — when two of them encounter each other, they enter into a mating dance and then slip away into another dimension, leaving behind only the temporary ghosts of years gone by. If you can’t find a way to pierce that thick shell to take one down, better find another one to pair it off with instead. Just try not to get bit while leading them around and find yourself suddenly 5 years old again.

The insects aren’t the only thing going on in Oska, though. As it turns out, unicorns really hate this adult form of the temporal insects, and will start kicking their way out of their stalls in the stables to get at the insects in an attempt to impale or trample them. According to Uruz they’re gallant warriors, but not always quite cut out to take on a bug, and can easily get themselves hurt or killed. She would really appreciate recruits taking a moment to recapture any stray unicorns they may come across and leading them back to the stables. Try to avoid any insects on the way, or you’ll find yourself suddenly fighting insect and irate unicorn, which is no one’s idea of a good time.

The lake is getting more active, too. All the fighting has woken up something in the depths of it. Dark red tentacles sometimes creep up onto shore — and don’t worry, this time they don’t belong to a sea goddess. The tentacles don’t attack unless attacked, and can in fact be quite agreeable. Nodes along the length of them act as primitive eyes, which see well enough to interact with anyone nearby. They’re also all a little peckish. Toss a tentacle a bit of food and watch it curl around and ingest it using tiny mouths on the underside. It might even be willing to play a few rounds of fetch or slap a bug into the sky for you if you put it in a good mood with a morsel of food.

The senior ALASTAIR members can be seen out and about and doing their part, too. Uruz and Dagny fight as a team, centaur and elf, sometimes fighting back to back and sometimes as mount and rider. They’ll stop and lend a hand, but the cats are a little less generous. Cherenkov and Crowley fight inseparably and use magic and science in deadly combination to ward off and destroy the bugs, but can usually only be seen darting on their way from one place to another. They have a lot of magitek to repair in the destructive wake of the insects. Pomarr, neither as senior nor as invested in actively picking off the bugs, offers shelter near a tentacle-free portion of the lake, calling down storms to toss away bugs for her and anyone in the vicinity.

OOC NOTES

This log spans a week ICly. Characters will find themselves beginning to understand each other again as the bugs first vanish, as the effects of the cats’ work on the magitek pays off. The translation problem will be completely fixed by the time the cocoons hatch. All of the bugs will have been killed or shipped off by the sixth day, leaving the last day before their departure to the next mission blissfully relaxing. Any temporally misplaced recruits will be back to normal by the last day, as well.

A reminder to anyone still texting: the texting feature of magitek jewelry operates based on thought! There are no physical keyboards, recruits merely think the message that they’d like to send to another recruit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ The question gave her pause—it seemed absurd to be so perplexed by it, for she could see in his face that he was younger, in his trembling stature. She had never seen Kylo Ren look small until now; he always seemed a monolith, nonpareil. Never had she felt her own power more acutely than looking at his untapped. ]

You don't know?

[ She sounded both surprised and, somehow, pleased. It would be easier if he didn't know, but something in her warred with the notion of the requisite manipulation therein. She had gone to great lengths to pursue Snoke for what he had done to Finn, but where did it end? What would become of her if she lowered herself to his level? ]

I'm what you hope to become: a jedi.

[ It was a lie, but a small one. She had trained to be a jedi. She had learned their ways, and she had rejected them for her own selfish purposes, her own vengeance. It would not be the last she told. Rey drew closer, never smiling, but still gentle in a way. Reaching out to him both by closing the physical distance and by giving the empathic impression of opening herself to him. ]

You don't have to be afraid. [ She held a hand out to him. ] I'm Rey.

[He wants to reach for the lightsaber -- to hold it between them and force distance, but that would mean being confronted by that horrible backfiring sound, the crackle of power that threatens to overwhelm his barely calm mind.

He doesn't need the Force to call her on her bluff, however small. It seems so much larger when assaulted by that which feels natural and yet that which still manages to make him feel unclean.]

I know the Jedi.

[His uncle leads them, he wants to say. It sticks in his throat, the idea of tying himself to prestige. How many times would he tell himself that he didn't need his name to prove his worth?]

You are lying.

[In spite of his warring emotions, his voice stays perfectly monotone and stern. His eyes fall to her hand briefly and then back to her eyes.

He does not take it, nor does he back away. He is frozen watching her (out of curiosity, out of hyper vigilance), waiting for a twitch of the Force to alert him of an attack -- or anything disingenuous.]

I know you do. [ While the earnest edge of her smile is enough to be unnerving, it doesn't look exactly dishonest, but instead secretive—made more so by the way she breezed past his accusation. As though she's smiling at her own private joke instead of their mutual acquaintance. ] You trained under Master Skywalker as well, didn't you?

[ He was as disappointed in her now as he was in Kylo Ren, every hesitation he'd had to develop her skills realized in the tragedy of Finn's death—no, not death. Murder.—and how it had unhinged her, setting loose a beast that only Ren had known before then, only Ren had seen, on Starkiller Base, ready to devour him.

Luke was far away now from both of them, but it seemed he had instilled a similar doubt in Ben early on—doubt that he could hold steady to the path set before him. Rey wondered if it was Luke's uncertainty in them both that might have been the tipping point, but to blame him was to displace a blame that belonged squarely to Snoke and herself. No one had forced Rey to walk this path.

Still, she hoped he might sense some camaraderie in that connection, a kindred spirit, and with the shared context of that training, she tilted her head and shifted her gaze to the hilt of his lightsaber. Puzzled, asking, ] What are you afraid of?

The Dark Side is with you.

[Saying it feels like he's swearing. The acknowledgement wraps thick around his tongue, calling her on her attempts to paint a picture that doesn't exist. In spite of it, his mind wraps itself in a knot and he forgets the fact that he's acknowledging that which he must never admit aloud.

So he backtracks, and with it, he finally puts his weight on a half-step backward.]

I am not afraid.

[He digs for--something, anything to make him feel like he's drowning less. He finds indignation, and he latches to it, thinking it less harmful than fear or anger and keeps him from being tempted to frustration.

His desperation prevents him from seeing the path down which it leads him. He exhales, and steels himself to pull the lightsaber from his belt with a tell tale click.]

Only a fool would let their guard down around someone like you.

[ It stings because she knows he's right in a way that he can't possibly. But she perseveres through it because she also knows the truth of it, that it's so much muddier than he can imagine, that there is no Dark Side, no Light—not because of any nonsense like power and those without it, not because of necessity, but because of what the Force is. ]

You have so much left to see.

[ And for a moment, she sounds almost like she pities him, though she knows that she won't when he does see, that when he does understand, it will tear through her in ways that she could not previously fathom. The loss of Han Solo let the Dark Side in, but it was Finn's death that fanned the flame into the raging inferno it had become now. ]

All you can see is what Luke has taught you, but there's so much more. There's no switch. No boundary. To know the Force, to use the Force is to touch the Dark Side; you can't escape it. It's like sinking into the black bottom of the ocean. The depths alone aren't dangerous, not unless you lose sight of the light.

[ She sighs. ]

I know you've felt it too.

[He blinks hard the longer she talks, and she's right, he knows somewhere deep down that she's right. The switch doesn't exist, the Force is not something that can only be one or the other, the voice that had no name had reminded him for years that the true evil was denying what was always there. Not her's but--another, just as tempting, just as pitiable. Like everyone saw his ignorance but he.

It is not the Dark Side that is evil, but those who would allow chaos to reign without control over both the Light and the Dark.

Ben feels a droplet of sweat curl slowly down the side of his head, and such a simple thing is what triggers his fight or flight response.

Naturally he chooses the former. His breath catches fearfully in his throat, powerless to the surge of white-hot anger that rips through him down his arm and to his fingers that trigger the backfire of the crossguard saber. He does not think twice about swinging it at Rey's saber-hand.

Dark or Light, it didn't matter. Disarming her with settle his nerves -- of that, he is certain.]

[ Her thumb skates across the button to ignite her lightsaber, and in a flash of burnt ozone, a smell that she has learned to relish, she brings up the violet beam to crash against Ben's, twirling the hilt to calmly parry him before he could singe and disarm her.

She has felt the sting of a lightsaber now, has the burns to show for it beneath layers of black wool and leather, and the pain doesn't frighten her anymore. There's no pain worse than what she suffers every day knowing that Finn is dead because of her, no pain that could pierce the haze of that purpose that drove her onward and reach her.

Kylo Ren might have been able to land such a hit on her, but he was not Kylo Ren yet. ]

You fear the Dark Side, but even now, you let your rage drive you. [ She took a calm step back. One day, he would offer to teach her how to touch the Force, how to wield it as a blunt instrument and take what she wanted. Today, though, she'd teach him. ] Aren't you tired of giving up control of yourself? To your Master? To your own feelings?

[The party nearly stumbles him, not having expected her to be faster than him. Ben catches his breath, but the anger doesn't flee. It only gets stronger, a roar in his ears the more Rey talks and the more she tries to evade him if he stops attacking her, it leaves her free to float and whisper and laugh at some lie she spins for him. If he continues to attack, then isn't he just proving everything she is saying about him to be correct?

It's a fight he can't win until he silences her. Even if it were not the Jedi way -- Master Skywalker would understand. How many years has it been since Darth Vader ruled the galaxy?

He swings again, gripping with both hands this time, a tensing of his shoulders that dominates his stance.]

Do not pretend to know me. I am in control!

[Perhaps she was not pretending -- it's a voice he distantly recognizes, the fog his thoughts don't quite pierce.]

[ The power behind his blow can't be argued. Rey raises her weapon to block him, and though she catches the blow, it digs her heels in and locks the beams together in a stubborn battle of brute strength. Not particularly graceful, but telling. There's no flourish in his moves, only blunt desperation as he tries to convince himself that he is anything but what he is. ]

I'm not the one pretending.

[ She leaned forward, the red and violet light reflecting on her face, casting long shadows across her nose and cheekbones. ] Do you believe that defeating me will prove me wrong? Make you feel like you belong? [ She shakes her head, certain and earnest and somehow still goading. ] It won't.

[Ben keeps pushing and pushing, because he's, silencing her will fix it, he has to believe that. He ignores the widening of the pit of his stomach, the warmth of his own rage as he presses down on that violet blade. He doesn't pay attention to his balance, driven by how he can see her struggling under the strength of his fury.

The fear and the anger war with one another, and the ozone crackles dangerously close to their arms. He might never belong, but at least he knows that he would have been right.

And that's more important than anything else right now.]

And you think I belong with you? With the Dark Side?

The Dark Side, the Light. I told you: it's more complicated than that.

[ She draws from a well of surprising patience that she could not have previously claimed to possess. Kylo Ren no longer has anything that can hurt her. No power. No threat. What he could do to tear her to pieces, he has already done, and those wounds have scarred over. The boy that killed Han Solo is but a pawn beside Snoke, the real enemy, and she is pragmatic enough to consider that he is more useful to her crusade against that monster as an ally than dead.

Rather than let him take some gratification in the way his blow weighs down on her, his height allowing him the advantage despite her not inconsiderable physical strength and its efforts to counter his, Rey spins and side-steps him, letting the momentum carry him forward in a stagger. ]

What you call the Dark Side took something from me. [ She looked the part of a feral animal, teeth bared, as she explained cleanly, ] I intend to take something in turn.

[ With the press of a button, the violet beacon of her saber sighed and vanished. She clipped it to her waist. There is no pretending she has not surrendered to her worser nature, given in to the Dark Side as Luke would say, but she is not one of Snoke's, not with the First Order, and she will not allow Kylo Ren to even incidentally categorize her there when her goals are not power, not control, not order—but retribution. ]

You can decide to come with me and turn your back on the Dark and the Light that have rejected you, or you can wait here for the darkness to rise up and drown you. [ She turned her back to him and started down the hallway, confident that she would find better results in the threat of facing isolation and allowing him the choice rather than forcing it upon him. What he saw in her, she'd also seen in him, even if he hadn't made his way to that holding cell on Starkiller Base yet. Even if he never did. ]

[He catches himself in the stagger, singing a piece of his robes on the quillons with a growl of frustration. Ben becomes keenly aware of his fury that causes his hands to tremble. It is painfully impossible for him to ignore the source of his fear now, especially when Rey so handily echoed the notion that the darkness would rise and swallow him whole.

Something about it is familiar, so familiar that it threatens to strangle him. He sits on the ground where he has caught himself, listening to the angry crackle of the saber too close to his face as he messes with the self inflicted burn in his robes.]

Wait.

[Even after he says it, he regrets it. Some of him does -- most of him hungers for the conclusion he is suddenly so close to.]

What did it take from you? Who?

[It's practically a whisper, small and startled at the clarity he finds himself on the verge of. Something isn't right -- the Force confirms a disturbance, but does not point to a source. Whoever this girl is -- Rey -- something is missing. Something he doesn't remember, a whole life he feels he should know, but can't place.]

Tell me.

[ She stops, but doesn't turn around.

Time was, he would pull it out of her mind. Or try. Somehow, saying it hurts worse than the pain of that violation. ]

There was a boy. [ She sounds almost wistful despite the anguish that the memory of Finn's face brings upon her. ] A boy that I loved. [ There were good memories, too, but they only hurt her now to think on. Happiness felt like an open wound.

Her voice hardened. ]

And because I loved him, Snoke killed him.

[ She collected herself: squared her shoulders, straightened her spine. Looking back at the smooth planes of Kylo Ren's unscarred face, she seethed. Snoke's right arm, still injuring himself on his own lightsaber. ]

That's what he does. He destroys the thing you love most. And that anger that Luke has tried to break you of? Hold onto it: because it's the only thing that will help you stop him from doing it to you too.

[A boy. What boy?

Snoke, that name triggers recognition, a slow dawning that is almost prophetic as he lifts his head and simultaneously deactivates the lightsaber. Snoke, the name he never called him without its title, the Supreme Leader.

And Luke. His uncle suddenly seems so far away, so distant and cold in his disappointment. So stern like his father, set in his ways like his mother -- how they all left him on that island and hoped that he, the problem, would fix itself.

But the problem was never him, the problem was the man named Ben Solo -- the confused man who never matured into himself because nobody had ever given him the chance to live a normal life with a family who had enough time for him.

His eyes go up to Rey, like he's seeing her for the first time.]

I remember him. The Supreme Leader.

[It comes back, like sludge leaking over his body and turning his skin cold. The Dark quickly shuts out the Light as the veil of confusion peels itself away. The gooseflesh creeps up his neck, makes pale skin clammy.]

The island. He told me about the island where they would leave me. Where they left me.

[Ben Solo--where had he emerged from? He hadn't used that name in so long. Why was he here now, making his stomach churn, fading like a shadow that he'd never truly chased away while he kneeled at the feet of the Scavenger--

The Scavenger he didn't recognize, as she recognized him.]

And--you saw the island too, once. A vision.

[When he had forced his way into her mind, when she had found her power sleeping within her and called upon it unconsciously to resist against him.]

Edited 2016-09-15 04:44 (UTC)

More than a vision. I trained there with Luke, like you did.

[ Maybe not there—Ren certainly seemed clueless to Skywalker's location, so she could not assume that he'd been to the ruined temple there—but close enough. She advanced towards him, stubborn and insistent. Her boots echoed on the hollow floor, punctuating her scramble for the right words. ]

And even his training wasn't safe from Snoke's reach. He used you just like he hoped to use me.

[ She could sense it, something swelling in him, a chorus reaching its crescendo and if she could only get him there, then he'd see. Surely, Kylo Ren must hate Snoke as much as she. He had every reason.

Earnest fervor clawed its way up into her throat, blind and bloodthirsty and driven by an insatiable hunger for meaning. She had lost Finn, but she refused to grieve him, instead throwing herself headlong into the task of avenging him so that she could continue moving, carrying herself forward. It consumes her, the thought that maybe the two of them could— ]

You could help me destroy him. Without Snoke, there is no Dark Side. No First Order.

[ It's a minimalist view of the galaxy, of the Force, as though the actions of one could represent such a concept and power. The blow would be considerable. Her blind desperation led her to demand it be an insurmountable one that would redeem her in the eyes of Luke and Leia, that would justify all that she has done and free her of that same label. Dark Side. As if she had not already surrendered to it. Killing Snoke might prove her separate and be the only thing that saves her. ]

[The Dark moves like sludge, burying the startled-still presence of Ben Solo until it nearly winks out of existence, leaving only a barely spatially aware Kylo Ren. Yes, he remembers. He remembers the sink of that insect's mandibles, waking up and being frightened of himself all over again, as if he had never erased that part of himself all those years ago. The youth in his face darkens away to return the bags beneath his eyes, wipes itself out of his skin as it returns to its pallor shade.

As he smears a hand over his face, he spontaneously becomes aware of how ridiculous he must look, kneeling there in what passes for attire that looks too small for him and entirely otherworldly compared to his dark robes.

But it is only a footnote compared to the sight he sees in front of him: the Scavenger, having cast aside all previous reason and given into the Dark Side...extending a hand of camaraderie to him, even.

And had he not just woken from such a strange existence, he might have questioned further. Instead, he remains in awe and feels something churn in his stomach. Delight? Schadenfreude? Dread?]

It is as you said...it is not so simple as that.

[The crossguard feels like an old friend, less like the poison Ben Solo had taken it for. The fury he had felt eating at his stomach burns his nerves a pleasant temperature, and he basks in it for a moment with a slow exhale. Kylo Ren rises from the dirt and brushes off his knees once in favor of appraising Rey more readily.

She was right about one thing, if nothing else. This had always been who he was. Ben Solo was weak, foolish, and dead. Rey had grown strong and confident, and had shed the shackles binding her as he once had.

The only thing that stems the feeling of satisfaction that swells in his chest is that Rey had to reawaken him at all. Just what had those bugs been up to in Oska??]

There will always be need for Order among chaos.

[ Somehow, the ill-fitting appearance and its contrast to the truth of him coming clear again, manifesting as though she had called it into being with the mere cry of the darkness, proved more unnerving than if he had presented in the dark lines of his robes and shining helmet. Dread made her heart pound in her stomach, leaving the rest of her body hyper-aware of its own position in space, trying to take measure of their surroundings lest the worst happen.

It was impossible, surely. But something was still wrong—the man before her was still not as she'd known him. At least, not as she'd known him most recently. No one would claim Kylo Ren in any iteration to be polished, but his edges looked rougher than she had grown to know them.

And failure pushed through her veins like frozen sludge, closing her hand around the hilt of her lightsaber and tightening it. This was not the surge of victory, the assurance that she had found him and won him to her way of thinking, to stop him from being the knight that guarded Snoke's king to instead one that helped her corner him into a checkmate. This was a rebirth. ]

That's Snoke talking. Not you.

[ She could not, would not, surrender her purpose now, not when she had felt it so close to her, brushed across her fingertips. ]

You let him poison your mind. Free it; see what his methods have cost you and join me.

Join you.

[He almost sounds amused -- as amused as Kylo Ren could possibly sound, more intrigued than humored at all. She must have been desperate indeed to extend her hand to the Dark after running about with his parents for even a moment. More curious is her hatred for the Supreme Leader.

Yes--that must be it. For what he had taken from her -- but then, Snoke had taken nothing. It was Kylo Ren who laid waste to her life and claimed that honor, so why was she so readily giving his glory away?

The amusement wipes from his face, and he frowns. He didn't find many things pleasant in the galaxy anymore but the rush of adrenaline that came with knowing he'd won, that was something that made it all worth it. The idea that the Supreme Leader would cast aside his achievements and claim them as his own almost--hurts.]

His methods have cost me nothing. I have only gained by his hand.

[Lost his father, certainly -- but he'd only had him as a boy to begin with. Was it really a loss at all?]

Nothing?

[ The very baffled and isolated nature of the word spoke volumes, patronizing Kylo Ren for being so short-sighted as to truly believe that estimation. Her eyebrows lifted of their own accord, then furrowed in an expression of disgust as she realized the truth: he knew, he had to know, for she remembered clearly showing him. She had hoped it would punish him for raising a hand against her. Apparently, he would claim it hadn't.

Her awareness pulsed out instinctively and she reined it back in. She would not search for the truth in that; there was nothing in his mind that she wanted to see, nothing that would make the picture any clearer for her. ]

Submitting yourself to his service has cost you control. You've gone from master to master, each of them blind to the true path, the true potential of the Force, and they've blinded you as well. What do you hope to find, offering your power up to him?

[ Finn knew that he would never find what he wanted serving such a master, she thought. Finn knew most things. She hated to think of him seeing her now, to think how easily he'd know the truth, that she was nothing but a mire of grief and pain searching blindly for a direction to let it bleed. ]

I am not the one searching.

[Nothing she claims is incorrect. Submitting to the Supreme Leader had been his only course of action, aside from submitting to utter ruin. He would have been remiss to say he hadn't preferred alternative courses -- even now, lucid, he understands that the path he walked was out of necessity, not desire. The Supreme Leader had shown him the truth, and then used it against him.

But being used, being a tool was better than being alone. There is surety in that knowledge.]

You are. You've always been searching, haven't you? For your parents. For belonging.

[A pause, a tilt of his head and a squint of his eyes. She's stronger now, harder to read. But not impossible. Surely there was something that had driven her--]

Ah. For the Stormtrooper.

[How unfortunate, that the only friend she had -- that she'd chosen, was doomed to his fate. Not all that unfortunate for Ren, in that she seems to have found her vision and her ambition. Tools that he'd been trying to pull from her since the day he had found her in that forest.]

[ Her hands balled into fists at her sides, a strangled effort to restrain herself from charging him for daring to give voice to a loss that he could not understand. This, she knew, was Ren's way: poking his nose into things he was not ready for. He could not know (would not care, surely) that she had been there to watch it, that the scene now replayed before her eyes while she stood aloof, paralyzed by impotence.

Snoke had hoped to engender in her a fear of ever feeling so weak and helpless again. He got that, but not in the way he'd hoped. She did not accept his hand in guidance, but instead sought to cut it off. ]

He had a name. [ Emotion made rough her voice, the demand choked and coarse and throaty but still clear enough to command. ] Use it.

[ She would not let Finn die and be remembered as something he'd never wanted to be, something he fought to escape. ]

To the First Order, he only ever had a number.

[He can feel her forcing herself to keep her temper still, and its a fascinating thing for Ren to behold -- perhaps even frightening. The Scavenger he knew would sooner strike or snap the moment he had raised his hand. This girl -- she calculates, she seethes, she hates so purely. Its a feeling he remembers, shortly before Snoke had taught him that his rage was a tool to be used, not to be forced down and held back for when the moment was right.

In spite of that, Kylo Ren understands how important a name can be. He doesn't intend to insult a clearly distraught Rey when he can instead manipulate the situation.

His eyes drop away from her's briefly when he speaks. He'd never cared for FN-2187. He was disobedient, unruly, and short-sighted. A defect, adopted by another family he didn't deserve.]

The name was never mine to have.

[ FN-2187.

She could still hear a man with his face saying it over and over again in her head, but it didn't make sense, and she couldn't reconcile it with Finn, with the man that she knew. Everyone knew that the Empire had used clones, she thought maybe … But now she wondered. She forced the thought from her mind; if she courted it, then it would mean that she had terrified Finn with the monster that she'd become. An unacceptable outcome. ]

It was Finn. [ She ground out the words slowly, a herculean effort against every inch of her that demanded Ren's head on a pike for even daring to argue the point. ] And he fought for it.

[ Through sheer force of will, her fists loosened, but only so that one might hover near the lightsaber on her hip and make her feel an inch closer to igniting it. ]

Say it.

[Ren finds himself at a familiar crossroads, eyes following from the ground to her fists. The correct choice is to comply, both for his own sake and the sake of the compound. But his desire is to see her reach for that saber, to make use of it as he knows she longs to do.

He rolls the name around in his mouth for a moment, visibly so as his jaw shifts from side to side, weighing and waiting, sensing with all of his being as he feels the line of Rey's patience getting thinner and thinner. Its not just about pride, and its not just about demonstrating he's still in control. Its about knowing when to relinquish it just enough to keep his assets close.

With Anakin still so far out of reach, the Scavenger is the only asset he can hope to retain. So long as she remains as she is.

In a deep bass, he finally mutters without looking up at her:]

Finn.

[He moves his crossguard hilt to hold it between both of his palms, deactivated, and flicks his eyes upward to watch for a reaction. Satisfied?]

[ She realized only after he complied that it was the one outcome she wasn't prepared for. In fact, it appeared to unnerve her more than any alternative could have, chafing against her perceptions of him and setting her jaw at an angle. A few moments of silence passed between them while she waited for some other foot to drop, for some qualifier to unravel his compliance. It never came.

Her fingers fell away from her lightsaber, and with that movement, the tension drained out of her, leaving in the wake of her frustration a cool void. Serene and hollow, she loosened her facial muscles into something unfeeling and neutral. ]

Don't forget it. [ She would make sure that Snoke never did either. ] Know this: there is nothing left for you to teach me, to use against me, to hold in front of me so you might guide me to the edge of a cliff. I don't search anymore. Everything that I need I have found within myself.

EVENT ★ BACK TO THE FUTURE

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