Rey Skywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strongerthanblood) wrote2020-11-22 04:31 pm
strongerthanblood) wrote2020-11-22 04:31 pm
Entry tags:
and with a stroke of her saber
Things have been going well. That probably should have rung in her head like warning bells, but it didn't. Maybe this place is making her too soft.
Rey is on the Falcon one night, because she got in an idea in her head about how she might be able to repurpose some a parts to try and make a repulsorlift for her bike. She kind of likes it how it is now, with its primitive rubber wheels, but an upgrade might be nice. Plus, she did tell Anakin that she would try.
She becomes so focused on her task that by the time she comes out of it enough to check the time, it's already so late at night and she's so tired. After checking in with Ben through the bond to let him know her plans, she goes to crawl into her preferred bunk. She'll get a few hours of sleep, and then go back to town at dawn.
Sleep comes easily to her, but it does not stay peaceful.
Rey dreams. This is not unusual, except for the fact that she's had this dream before, and it wasn't a dream. It was a vision.
Rey is on Exegol, dressed all in black. There is a hood over her head and a saber in her hand, and she walks with purpose. She strides, really, with her chin held high and a smile on her face. She makes all the way up to the top of the Sith throne without hesitation, and takes her seat next to Ben.
No, not Ben. It's Rey and Kylo Ren. Empress and Emperor.
Thousands of Sith rise up below them, and their cheer sounds more like a roar. A declaration of intent. An oath. Rey ignites her lightsaber and smiles, teeth sharp and face lit up in red.
The world belongs to her now.
A scream is what finally wakes Rey up, and it takes her a long moment to realize that it's coming from her. Even as she wakes up, the vision doesn't stop. It keeps on going, plaguing her mind with images of her tearing apart worlds just to watch them burn. She grabs her saber and stuffs her feet into her boots, runs out of the Falcon and into the misty rain, and it keeps going.
Palpatine's laugh rings in her head so loud that it makes her dizzy. It feels like it's pressing in on her from all sides, like it's echoing throughout the entire city.
The time has come. You will ascend.
You will take the throne. It is your birthright to rule here. It is in your blood. Our blood.
I wanted you here, Empress Palpatine.
Rey lets out a wild scream into the rain, chest burning as she keeps running, feeling compelled to do so. Her feet know where they are going before she does, but maybe she just doesn't want to acknowledge it, because it can't be true. It can't be here.
You will take the throne.
She tears through the forest, tripping over gnarled roots and fallen branches, and when she finally makes it to a clearing overlooking the sea, near where her and Ben sometimes train together, she sees it. There under the glowing light of the moon, shining in the rain, it sits.
The Throne of the Sith, with all it's cruel, horrible points carved into stone. It's not something that Rey thought that she would ever see again, and she lets out another cry of terror as she falls to her knees before it. She destroyed it, once. She'll just have to do it again.
She can practically hear the chanting of the Sith as she throws her hand in front of her and sends out a burst of electric energy. The tendrils of lightning curl around the stone but do nothing, and Rey screams louder as she forces more of her power into the act. She wants it gone. It has to be gone.
Her teeth grit against the onslaught and she yells through it, even as the lightning shoots up from the throne and into the sky like a beacon, crackling through the air like thunder claps.
It is in your blood.
"No!" She cries out into the night, into the Force, to anyone who will listen. "I don't want it!"
Rey is on the Falcon one night, because she got in an idea in her head about how she might be able to repurpose some a parts to try and make a repulsorlift for her bike. She kind of likes it how it is now, with its primitive rubber wheels, but an upgrade might be nice. Plus, she did tell Anakin that she would try.
She becomes so focused on her task that by the time she comes out of it enough to check the time, it's already so late at night and she's so tired. After checking in with Ben through the bond to let him know her plans, she goes to crawl into her preferred bunk. She'll get a few hours of sleep, and then go back to town at dawn.
Sleep comes easily to her, but it does not stay peaceful.
Rey dreams. This is not unusual, except for the fact that she's had this dream before, and it wasn't a dream. It was a vision.
Rey is on Exegol, dressed all in black. There is a hood over her head and a saber in her hand, and she walks with purpose. She strides, really, with her chin held high and a smile on her face. She makes all the way up to the top of the Sith throne without hesitation, and takes her seat next to Ben.
No, not Ben. It's Rey and Kylo Ren. Empress and Emperor.
Thousands of Sith rise up below them, and their cheer sounds more like a roar. A declaration of intent. An oath. Rey ignites her lightsaber and smiles, teeth sharp and face lit up in red.
The world belongs to her now.
A scream is what finally wakes Rey up, and it takes her a long moment to realize that it's coming from her. Even as she wakes up, the vision doesn't stop. It keeps on going, plaguing her mind with images of her tearing apart worlds just to watch them burn. She grabs her saber and stuffs her feet into her boots, runs out of the Falcon and into the misty rain, and it keeps going.
Palpatine's laugh rings in her head so loud that it makes her dizzy. It feels like it's pressing in on her from all sides, like it's echoing throughout the entire city.
The time has come. You will ascend.
You will take the throne. It is your birthright to rule here. It is in your blood. Our blood.
I wanted you here, Empress Palpatine.
Rey lets out a wild scream into the rain, chest burning as she keeps running, feeling compelled to do so. Her feet know where they are going before she does, but maybe she just doesn't want to acknowledge it, because it can't be true. It can't be here.
You will take the throne.
She tears through the forest, tripping over gnarled roots and fallen branches, and when she finally makes it to a clearing overlooking the sea, near where her and Ben sometimes train together, she sees it. There under the glowing light of the moon, shining in the rain, it sits.
The Throne of the Sith, with all it's cruel, horrible points carved into stone. It's not something that Rey thought that she would ever see again, and she lets out another cry of terror as she falls to her knees before it. She destroyed it, once. She'll just have to do it again.
She can practically hear the chanting of the Sith as she throws her hand in front of her and sends out a burst of electric energy. The tendrils of lightning curl around the stone but do nothing, and Rey screams louder as she forces more of her power into the act. She wants it gone. It has to be gone.
Her teeth grit against the onslaught and she yells through it, even as the lightning shoots up from the throne and into the sky like a beacon, crackling through the air like thunder claps.
It is in your blood.
"No!" She cries out into the night, into the Force, to anyone who will listen. "I don't want it!"
no subject
Mud squelching under his boots, Ben crossed the distance between them and dropped into a crouch at her side.
There had always been something bracing about her power, the enormity and rawness of it, and whether she called down destruction upon them both, or spent the rest of the night sobbing in the dirt, he would've been no less awed by her.
"He's not here, Rey. It's just an echo, can't you feel it?"
no subject
She isn’t sure why she struggles so much with this. Perhaps it’s just the utter disappointment and revulsion of finding him at the end of a fifteen year search for meaning and purpose. After all that, and she’s a Palpatine. It feels exceedingly cruel, and after a lifetime of cruelties this one is especially hard to come to terms with. She is not only her blood, she is so much more than that, but sometimes she cannot help but to be disgusted. Or terrified.
“I just want to be free of it,” she says raggedly, forcing herself to draw in a breath as she looks up at the throne. “But he’ll never leave me.”
no subject
Perhaps he ought to have hesitated— she was so raw with anger, but he reached for her, undeterred, broad hand sliding along the side of her neck.
"Listen to me, Rey. He's a part of you, you're not wrong. He always will be. And yet, you've rejected him, every time. He's put the full might of his power into tempting you, using me to do it, and it doesn't matter. You're still you. And that's always been enough, despite him."
no subject
It calms her slightly, and she looks up at Ben as he speaks, clinging to his every word. She is so grateful for him in this moment, and she knows that a part of her fear in having the throne here was that it would somehow lead to her losing him again.
Rey surges forward to wrap her arms around him, clinging to him tightly in the rain. She buries her face in his neck and clings to the back of his sweater, breathing hard as she lets his words work their way through the haze of anger and fear in her mind.
"It won't leave us alone," she rasps out, resting her head on Ben's shoulder as she stares at the throne looming over them. The throne, Kylo's saber. All these things from the dark side that keep finding them here, where they should be untouchable. "I don't want it here, Ben."
no subject
"Neither do I," he admitted, the shadow of the throne looming, as it had on Exegol.
"It's going to be a bit more difficult to throw into the ocean, I think."
no subject
The comment is so unexpected that it startles a rough sort of laugh from her, and she pulls back to look at him, sniffling as she cups his cheeks in her cool palms. This is not the first time that they've knelt together in front of this throne, but she reminds herself that it won't end like last time. They will leave here, and they will go home together.
"We could try," she tells him, only half-joking as she pushes his wet hair from his face. "Maybe I could blow it up."
no subject
"If you were to blow it up, where do you think that power would come from?" He asked, his tone even and curious. Once, he wouldn't have hesitated in stoking her anger, her fear, but now, all he could see was Palpatine's joy at seeing her might.
no subject
Ben continues speaking, and Rey pulls back to look at him, brow furrowed, until she raises one at him.
"It'd come from dynamite, probably," she says flatly, but her lips curl into a small smile that lingers for a few moments before going a bit more serious as she reaches up to sweep his wet hair back from his face. She actually had meant some sort of actual explosive, but she doesn't want Ben to worry about her. "I don't plan on ever pushing myself that far again, Ben."
no subject
"I suppose dynamite wouldn't be difficult to come by," he agreed, giving a vague shrug. "It might raise a few questions."
None she couldn't deal with, in one way or another.
no subject
She lets go of him and rocks back to sit on her haunches, curling her hands into fists and hiding them between her thighs. "Are you worried about me?"
no subject
"I'm worried for you. That doesn't mean I don't trust you. Far from it."
He could see inside her mind, the fear and down so similar to his own. Wielding the kind of power she had required resolve that few could even hope to possess, and while he knew she wouldn't waver the way he had, he worried for her all the same. He didn't want her to have to shoulder that burden.
Because he loved her.
no subject
Rey takes a deep breath and then stands, blinking rain from her eyes as she reaches for his hands to urge him to his feet. As she stands there, holding his hands in the rain, she takes a breath and glances over at the throne, swallowing hard before turning away.
"I feel the same for you," Rey tells him, smiling a little as she reaches up to touch his jaw. Ben has earned her unwavering trust, but she will never stop worrying about the burden he faces. They are the same in that, as well. "And I want us to go home."