STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

[avali]

STAR WARS CALL OUT POST:
STEP 1: pick a muse
STEP 2: leave a comment with their name in the subject line, pictures, words or all of the above
STEP 3: profit

Comments

[narcissithstic]

[It's a shot dead through his ribs. Not the threads he's found under his fingertips, but the words they bore into his skin - a name he all but erased. Washed his hands of and forgot (never really forgot) and spat on with all the vitriol his heart could muster.]

That's not my name. [The sort of correction only a child makes, biting down on his own tongue the second it's said.]

I could bring you back.

[His own fumbling attempt to right things before any connection between them is lost or discarded, teeth set hard enough to strain his jaw.] Immortality, grandfather.

making this up as i go

[darkfather]

["I could bring you back". As if the prospect of returning as a shattered and crippled shell of his former self, even more of a broken thing then he was when he first put on his mask, has any appeal. He knows that he isn't whole - he is merely a reflection of what came before, a shadow, an imprint. To be brought back in any capacity would be to live a twisted half-life.

His shadow moves, looming large in the room. ]

Immortality means nothing.

[ He breathes the name, emphasizes it. For all that the man in front of him would deny it, he knows the blood that runs in his veins. He is as much "Solo" as he is "Skywalker". More of both than he is "Kylo Ren". ]

I sense...

[ The words hang. ]

Conflict. Yes. You are conflicted. Afraid.

you and me both we're just some improv artists all up in

[narcissithstic]

[He's not a child anymore. Evaluations, for better or worse, don't spark him to frothing tantrums where either rank or risk are involved, and he doesn't flinch in the face of Vader's assessment: the only response that comes is the grit of an already set jaw, muscle flexing uselessly.

It isn't wrong.

He's terrified of a great many things. Loss, disappointment, failure - the idea that somehow it's all been predetermined for him since birth, one collapsing pin after another, over and over again. Snoke was the only saving grace in his guidance, but his grandfather? He was the inspiration. The aspiration. And carrying worth passed down via genetics is as much a coveted privilege as it is a promise there was always a set mark for him beyond his mother's beloved devotees or his failed father's exploits. And now, here, he's face to face with that ideal, facing the frigid sum of every possible fear, every hope bottled up and locked away across the years.]

Not of you. [Coming from someone else's mouth, it might sound like a threat, but Kylo's voice carries pride. Respect.] Not of what I could be, with your guidance.

late 5ever

[darkfather]

Your fear makes you weak.

[ The reverence in his grandson's voice is disgusting. Invigorating. What does this boy know of him? Of his life? of the pain and anger that fueled him for nearly thirty years? His shadow looms large again and what little light is left in the room seems to be snuffed out, crushed by a smothering, encroaching darkness, a chill that seeps out of the walls. ]

And what do you know of me? You understand nothing, Solo.

[ As sickening as it is to admit, thirty years ago he would've been ecstatic to have somoene as willing to follow him as Benjamin. Maybe then he might've crushed the Emperor, made things right-

But that is a dream for the living. ]

[narcissithstic]

Then teach me. [There's so much bile in the words when he hisses them out through gritted teeth that he practically tastes it on his tongue; he hasn't come this far to lose-- to have sacrificed everything only to be discarded-- forgotten and useless beneath Snoke's heels.

He has no right to make demands. He makes them regardless. Wills it.]

Let me be your legacy.

[darkfather]

[He could not turn his own son and perhaps that was a mercy. For all of the rage and hatred, a part of him still understands what his son accomplished for him. And now here is his grandson, offering himself as his tool. But he is a shade of himself now, nothing more than whispers in the dark. His time has gone. ]

It is too late for that.

[ There's maybe a bit of bitterness there. ]

Too late for me. I cannot teach you, young Solo. You have not mastered the anger within yourself. You have not harnessed your fear.

[narcissithstic]

[It's more painful to hear than Snoke's chastising remarks, and more digging than a wound to his side, like a structure buckling from its foundation upwards. To have come so close-- to have always come so close and never found a single viable foothold strong enough to pull himself up above the rising tide. Was this truly his birthright? Was he doomed to a life as a broken, pale shell since the moment he was born?

Was it his father's blood?]

--It's the light, isn't it?

[Always tormenting him, always calling to him, weakening his attachment to the dark side and its power; Snoke had chosen him because of his belief that there was balance in it, but now, with so much time passed, with so much discontentment to be found in it...Kylo Ren isn't so certain the Supreme Leader's assumptions were true.]