001 ✨ video

[forcelight]

[ It's late when this video appears on the network, most people might be sleeping at this time. Some of you might recognize the face looking back at the camera, a bleeding cut on her shoulder - holding something in her hands ... just out of the view of the frame. but she looks... the same. no worse for wear, mostly annoyed if anything. ] 

I'd ask what the point of sending someone out, only to return them without letting them set foot home first was but I doubt anyone would be able to give me a solid answer. I apparently was gone three months, I have a new living situation and they expect me to sell swimwear when I don't have the first idea of how to do that.

Finn? Poe, if you're both still here... I remember this place. 

[ Really her swimming skills are... barely skills. Her shoulders slump and she holds something - two somethings up. what was once the hilt of a very familiar lightsaber, broken straight in half. ]

And... I'm going to need help repairing this. 

[ she hesitates, as if to say something else - but thinks better of it and turns off the feed. ]

Comments

[photophobic]

That isn't lightsaber damage.

[The casing. Kylo knows he didn't destroy it.]

Tell me what happened.

[forcelight]

It's not lightsaber damage. It wasn't your doing.

We... [ the context here is important, but she leaves him to decide what it means. why they fought in the first place. ] We fought for it, and the crystal shattered. I took the broken pieces before you woke up.

[photophobic]

[Unseen, Kylo laughs. Short. Sharp. Bitter.]

It didn't choose you after all.
So you stole it, then. And left me.

[forcelight]

No. It called to me, I felt it. [ Maz's castle, on Starkiller. She hadn't known what they meant at first, but she did now.

His final statement, she lapses into silence. She has dreams still, about that final moment - could she have swayed him to join her?

She'd seen the good in him, Luke was wrong about that. But he hadn't seen it for himself. ]

I think we should talk. In person.

[photophobic]

Why. So you can reject me again?

[forcelight]

[ those words hurt, she had rejected him. or rather, his offer - but really were they not one in the same? she grits her teeth and pushes past it.

she hadn't wanted... ]

What do you want me to say, Kylo?

[photophobic]

You know what I wanted you to say.

[forcelight]

And you knew that I didn't want that, you had to have known that.

[ her voice, which had risen a little in anger, falters. ]

I hoped you would come back with me.

[photophobic]

Back to what. The people who abandoned and rejected me. Who feared me. Lied to me. Sent me away. And tried to kill me in my sleep. Really. You hoped I would want that. After everything we shared.

I thought you wanted me. But you didn't. Did you.

[forcelight]

I saw the good in you, Kylo. They were wrong - Luke was wrong to think your fate was already sealed.

But it wasn't them I wanted you to come back for.

[ yes, she had. and it hurt to leave, and close that door. ]

[photophobic]

No?

Then who. What, if not to stop the destruction of the Resistance.

[forcelight]

I never told anyone anything even close to what I told you. Not your uncle, or anyone in the Resistance... nobody would understand.

You said that I wasn't alone, and I believed you.

[ maybe part of her still does ]

And if you think that me choosing to leave was done easily, you know less of me than you thought.

[photophobic]

I meant every word I said to you. I gave you my secrets.
But you chose them. Knowing what they did. You still chose them.

You could have had me, Rey. I would have given you everything. We could have learned it all together. Not the ways of the Jedi. Or the Sith. No more echoes of a failed past. We could have made a new way. A better way. You and me.

But you wanted them more.

lies down on the floor

[forcelight]

[ that inspires a change, a moment of anger. after all, he'd chosen something else too, hadn't he? something that for her, was as far and away as anything she could've asked for herself. ] And what about you? To create a new order for the galaxy, that's what you wanted, is it not?

I never wanted to rule, Ben. [ it's fleeting and she feels as alone as she had when he'd offered her his hand. ] I just wanted you with me.

[photophobic]

It's what I was called to do. My task. I wanted to share it. With you.

But it doesn't matter, here. There are no tasks, no obligations. There's no destiny. No call. We can do anything we choose. Be anything.

And you know where I am.

[forcelight]

[ No tasks, no obligations.

Be anything.

What does she want, what is she - parted from the conflict? Lost and lingering or will she grow into this life - as he seemingly has.

With a swallow and terse nod, she cuts the feed. ]