(no subject)

[sololoquy]

CHARACTERS: Kylo Ren and YOU
DATE: Early October.
WARNINGS: Potential roughhousing
SUMMARY: Fighting crime isn't really his schtick, but its an easy way to fix an anger problem.

[His father was a smuggler, once. When he was young, Han Solo had told him stories until he grew too old to be impressed by them any longer. It had been a simpler time. That period of life had been short.

Years as an enforcer of the First Order's will had put him in contact with enough people who knew how to put up a fight for their lives. Kylo Ren cannot be told to stay within city limits -- he'd always been free to roam the galaxy, whenever his presence was not needed for one thing or another, and he isn't about to be tied down because of a few so-called bandits.

He's already encountered one group of them near one of the mines and had dealt with them when they had made the mistake of attempting to turn on him. This is when he addresses the Audentes at large, but he doesn't vacate the area quickly. After all, he hardly reached city limits before coming in contact with them. Perhaps there were more -- and so he hunts, lightsaber in hand but deactivated.

But the moment he hears or senses someone get to close to him, he will hold it out and threaten with its activation, regardless of who comes up on him.]

I am busy.

Comments

[forcevisions]

[ The hiss of the melting rock acts as a warning for her—that is the sensation of a lightsaber burn. Volcanic. Her stomach climbs into her throat, threatening her with the same injury, when her lightsaber locks against a quillon and his fingers clench around the meat of her upper arm.

He trips. She wrenches her arm back. Rey's lightsaber cuts sparks out of the mineral-saturated dirt of the mine and burnt ozone fills her nose as her upward strike cleaves through him, seizing the opening. The plasma scores the cut with the fibers of his own singed robes, melding them with his skin in the same way that Poe's jacket had become a part of Finn. The flesh smoldered beneath.

The blow is close enough to spook her. Violent and reckless enough that were a lesser Force-user, she might have killed him. It tells them both that she has the capacity for it, the instinct. It forces beneath a harsh spotlight her intentions, begging her to decide if she really wants to. ]

[sololoquy]

[He knows he's make a critical mistake in his certainty before it happens. The curse of the Force as his constant companion. So he braces himself--

But there's nothing to prepare for such a clean slice at his back. The many layers don't do anything to protect him -- he stumbles, breath shallow with pain and voice high as he catches himself on a rock. There's a brief stumble as his singed nerves win out over his fortitude.

His turn is swift -- damages both wounds he's managed to sustain out of recklessness without flinching. For a long moment, he stares with dark and heavy eyes and he waits. She's done him the favor of proving his point, even if she didn't take the final blow. Even still, injured, he does not press the fight -- he will not allow her a third hit by going on the immediate offensive. He doesn't quite straighten -- stayed hunched, robes smoking slightly, both hands white-knuckled under his gloves. There's no hiding it -- he's hurt and if he hadn't possessed the need to preserve what little dignity he had left, he'd be on one knee from the decisiveness of her strike.

They both know what she is capable of, but more importantly, Ren knows what he can't allow himself. His eyes move from her face to the saber, a deep loathing and jealousy plainly seen all over his face.

He says nothing. He only seethes, a gathering of dark and dangerous forces. A weight, deciding what was worth more -- mending his pride or forcing her hand.]

[forcevisions]

[ Heavy pants fill the air in the absence of any more articulate assessment from either of them, the mutual loss too apparent to warrant a boast on either Force-user's part. Rey's shoulders heave with the labor of each breath.

Quietly, she hoped for him to stay down, to accept the defeat, for fatigue crept down into her bones.

Finally, she dims the beam of her lightsaber, the blue light dying and giving way to the hellish glow shared by Kylo Ren's saber and the blood red of the setting sun. It reflects off the planes of her face. But she would not kill him, would not cross that line. It felt like failing Han Solo, but the alternative felt too much like failing herself. ]

It's mine.

[ And without saying more, she turned to leave, face against the dying light of the sun. ]