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 as if Starkiller's collapse is still happening lightyears away across the distance: snapped tempers and brittle appearances, shrinking, collapsing down until there's nothing left but bottled heat with too much pressure, until it breaks in a volatile, hateful burst of its own concentrated existence. Ren should be resting his wounds, making sure the uncauterized shot burrowed deep into his side doesn't continue to bleed or preparing himself for his inevitable reunion with the Supreme Leader, but all he hears in Hux's accusation is the pale memory of Han Solo's voice as he begged his would-be son to come home.

The ghost of his grip on his cheek where charred flesh now sits.

And all at once something in him breaks, like the bones of his ribs or the vertebrae of his spine and he feels like his lungs are full of nothing but white-hot rage, flooded and choking, and he's up on his feet again, grim and grotesque for all his scorch marks, his bloodstains. Bolts rattle, metal twists. Medical carts overturn sending instruments clattering across the floor and into nearby walls, closer and closer as Kylo Ren-- apprentice to Supreme Leader Snoke, master of the Knights of Ren-- stalks towards Hux, brimming with hatred. At himself, at his compatriot, at the universe itself and every living thing in it.

He doesn't need the mask this time.] Do you know what I was doing for those fifty seconds, General?

[hux]

[ The second Ren makes a move is the instant that Hux knows he's made a mistake. Giving Ren shit for his actions was always going to be a thing that happened, something that would need to be pointed out to clear the air so to speak. In the general's mind Ren was one of the soldiers and needed to understand they had messed up. Right now Hux can feel his stomach dropping to his feet as Ren advances on him, taking a single step back in his horror before squaring his shoulders.

This was going to hurt. A lot. Yet Hux isn't going to apologize, he won't apologize. Ren needed to understand and this was the only way. The timing was off but all Hux can do is try to stand his ground and walk away from it in one piece afterwards.

Easier said that done when Ren is that close, glaring hard enough that Hux briefly wonders if the other isn't trying to break every bone in his body at once with the Force.]

Tell me what you were doing for those fifty seconds, Kylo Ren. [His voice, amazingly enough, is firm. It doesn't betray him and Hux simply waits to see what the answer is, deciding that taking this step by step will be what lets him survive in one piece.]

[narcissithstic]

[The Force is a wonder, Skywalker used to say. He still carries the memory of it, useless, but no less relevant in terms of how he'd forged his own existence from the creature that was Ben Solo. Years later-- many, many years later-- he understands the truth in it: the Force is a wonder...a terrible, harrowing nightmare from which great misery can be spread with little more than a single, merciless thought. Hux, for all his failings, clearly recognizes the truth of it when he steps back, steeling himself like a cornered animal, but by then it's too late. Ren is too close, gloved fingers outstretched, willing him to be still and complacent, regardless of his own fears.

He sets his hand to the General's temple. Gentle enough that it could almost be kind.] Let me show you.

[It's a painful process, delving deep into someone else's mind and peeling away their thoughts. Discomforting beyond acute transparency or the ache of a struck, exposed nerve, how entirely helpless they become when the Force is so focused, channeled into them like a conduit. Unlike his cruelty with the bold resistance pilot, however, Ren doesn't rip memories loose from their moorings - no, he implants them this time. Bears into Hux the way it felt to be so tormented, the taste of blood on his lips when the blaster fire bore deep into his own flesh, Han Solo slipping away, the base rattling as Chewbacca snapped his hand over the detonator--

Hatred and misery swelling, and the weight of every living, breathing thing as it funnels down into his every waking moment. FN-2187 collapsed pitifully in the snow; the girl refusing Snoke's offer-- his offer-- before she tore into the vulnerable skin of his face.]