faderift | [semi-open] I will be your shining light

Entry tags:

[semi-open] I will be your shining light

WHO: Rey, Obi-Wan, open
WHAT: a reunion, and open
WHEN: after the rifters get to Kirkwall, and throughout Cloudreach.
WHERE: the docks, the Gallows
NOTES: will add if they become relevant

The Docks - Obi-Wan

Rey is tired after the trip to Orlais and looking forward to taking a bath and sleeping in her own bed for a change. But she can't help opening her senses as she disembarks, feeling out the Force, looking for Ben. What she doesn't expect is to sense someone else, someone she had grimly accepted she would never feel again.

She stops where she stands, Padawan looking at her quizzically as she freezes, trying to zero in on where he is. Obi-Wan.

When she determines the direction she takes off running down the docks, the Force guiding her. She catches sight of him and pushes herself faster, even as her vision blurs from tears welling in her eyes. She doesn't slow down until she crashes into him, throwing her arms around him with a sob. She's been so unsure of so much lately, but she can't help the profound relief washing over her as she feels the presence of her master once again.

Open - Training yard

She's back to one lightsaber, not that she minds. It's easier to control one than two, and she's more comfortable this way. The lightsaber that she had come to think of as hers in her hand, her first line of defense against demons and whatever else stands in her way.

For the moment she's running through her forms, things she learned under Obi-Wan, and a few she'd improvised, modified from Kylo Ren's fighting style. She holds the ignited saber in front of her, sweeping it in a slow arc, pacing her breathing, before speeding up, taking herself through motions she's practiced what feels like a thousand times, now.

Her chosen training spot is a little out of the way, but the low hum of the saber usually attracts some attention.

Open - Rey's Workshop

Often in the evenings, unless Rey is working on something or wanting private time, she'll leave the door to her room open so that Padawan can come and go, and so that others who might need her services can pop in. Or just so friends can pop in. The usual organized chaos of her room stands regardless of the day, and she is usually sitting at her desk, bent over something or another.

Her current project is another series of mini trebuchets that can be used in the obstacle course, and they sit around her desk in a varied state of disarray, some fully constructed, others waiting to be finished. She will look up when someone walks in, and if it's someone she doesn't recognize her tools will go down and she'll stand, asking who they are. If it's a friend they'll just get a smile and a wave as Rey finishes whatever she's in the middle of doing. She can talk and tinker, she's good at multitasking.

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It was soothing, feeling her fingers comb through his hair while he held onto her like she was a lifeline. He could remember with perfect clarity, prying into her thoughts when they met and speaking of how lonely and afraid she'd been to leave her home. In a sense he'd been lonely and afraid of her leaving him after everything that had passed between them.

He nods in answer, nose brushing against her throat when he does. He was comforted by how warm she was, how steady her heart beat in time with his own. He wanted to believe her, to believe that if they were still back home that she might be with him like this now - someday.

"I overplayed my hand a bit." He pulls away from the warmth of her, where he'd been content to keep burying his face into like a child, trying to articulate his thoughts. "I thought that because I understood what you went through that you wouldn't have to go through it again if you'd just stayed with me."

And not even begging her to stay had helped. He knew the reasons of course. He was content to watch the Resistance she had come to love so much burn because he knew without it and the First Order left standing, there would be no one left to fight. He wanted to take the ashes of both and bend them to his will as he'd done his lightsaber. But not her. He'd wanted her to be beside him through all of it.

Rey shifted as he pulled away, propping her head up with an arm, her lips pressed together as she listens to him. His admitting he'd overplayed his hand helps ease some of the frustration she still feels over that moment.

"I couldn't have stayed with the First Order," she says quietly, her hand running down along his shoulder as she talks. "I expected too much of you, too. I thought that... just because I saw a vision of one possible future that I could force it to come true. That all you needed was for me to show up and that you'd turn." She feels foolish, saying it now. She'd been reckless, flying right into the First Order flagship with a hope and no plan.

But she'd absolutely do it again in a heartbeat.

"I don't know that I could have gone back with you either, even if I had wanted to." The people who ruled now were weak, but they still had power. He would have been condemned for a war criminal, a murderer. His mother might still love him but that didn't change that it could very well have been his ship blasting her people into the sky. He also hadn't stopped Hux from using that damned weapon of his to obliterate planets.

It was better that both sides burn for neither was terribly innocent. It had been the Republic that had opened the door to corruption, after all. Without their squabbling the First Order would have never come to be in the first place. But those were long winded politics that he didn't want to think about. They weren't home, they were in a strange land with no way to go back and with no reason to truly dwell on all these things.

"I guess it doesn't matter. We won't be going anywhere for a long time." She had been here a year already. Who knew when they might see home again. He wasn't in any rush to be her enemy any time soon.

The look he gives her was full of sadness and regret. He would regret losing her compassion for him if she ever did realize just how deep this darkness, this hurt that grew like a cancer, ran. It had scared his family. One day it might even scare her too.

He reaches out, running his fingers through the ends of her hair. They had finally come together and already he was worrying about the day when they might come apart all over again. He'd probably never stop worrying about when that day might come.

She knows that it might not have gone smoothly if she'd shown up with Kylo Ren in tow after the Resistance had been chased for two days by the bulk of the First Order. But she also had confidence that they would have been able to reach an understanding, and that the Resistance would see the value he would have as an ally rather than an enemy.

Maybe she had been naive, but she still has some small hope that that could one day be the future they face together. Them, together here, just stoked that flame.

She doesn't voice that however, exhaling and nodding her head at his observation. She knows that's not true, on some level it matters, because they don't know when things could change. But for now, here, everything that happened between them before could be less important than the now.

"We can let go of the past. Live here, in the moment."

"I'm sorry. We could be thinking about nicer things and I'm the one making you worry." He wasn't exactly good at thinking on things that made him happy. Even the smallest bit of happiness was too good to be true for him, after years of having to fight down any sentiment he felt out of fear of failing as his grandfather had failed. That sentiment hadn't saved him from his uncle and it hadn't helped him when he'd been faced with killing his own father. It had only left him in despair.

Yet Rey was a promise that things could be good. Rey was his only hope that he could move past his mistakes and his demons. Sighing, after he'd had enough of these thoughts swirling in his head, he leans into her to kiss her. He wanted to apologize for being how he is now. She deserved someone who could be happy and not worry about so many of the things he worried about. She deserved someone who hadn't made the mistakes he'd made.

"Being in the moment with you sounds nice. Better than how I usually spend my time." He reaches out for her again to bring them both close to one another. His thoughts had been heavy enough to make him weary and he would much prefer being able to think about how warm she was pressed up against him in bed.

Rey is used to worrying, the feeling of uncertainty gnawing in the pit of her stomach from one day to the next. With Ben that worry seems less severe, because while yes, she is worried, she doesn't know where this will go or how it may end, she also feels an odd sense of peace. She's experienced very little peace in her life, and being with him filled her with warmth.

She kisses him again after he pulls her close, her hands sliding up to gently cup his face.

"I'm glad you're here with me." She doesn't know what it means for their galaxy if they're both here, it might not matter at all. But it could also change everything. Perhaps the galaxy would be better off, if they were both out of it.

"Me too. And this time I get to wake up to you actually here." The last time they'd done that he'd tried to crush her into the bed out of fear that he was being attacked in his sleep. It had been instinctive and now he knows he is perfectly safe with her.

His hands rest to her cheeks as well, marveling that he'd somehow managed to tie this woman to him so deeply that the thought of being without her caused him physical pain. She was beautiful and ferocious while also still being capable of showing him great kindness he often didn't deserve. She'd left her mark on him physically and emotionally without him meaning to let her.

Mindful about crushing her beneath him, he shifts to lay his head to her chest. Hearing her heartbeat was a soothing rhythm that he never got tired of. It meant this was real - that she was real. His arms wrap around her possessively as he relaxes, letting his eyes close.

"I derailed us a bit - if you want to tell me about other places you've been to." His words are hushed, muffled somewhat by him laying his face against her breast. He liked hearing about her adventures, knowing that she could see so much of this world without being afraid as she'd been afraid to leave Jakku. They could see this world together and neither of them would ever be alone again.

"Try not to attack me, this time," she replies with a sly smile. She knew that had been an accident, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to tease him about it. That had bothered her less than waking up in the morning in her tent without him there, after falling asleep with his warmth surrounding her. Like now.

His weight on her chest is oddly soothing, her hand shifting to both gently comb through his hair, sometimes drifting down to his back and up again. The motions feel right, if a little alien. She hums as she considers what to tell him, almost content to just sit here with her fingers playing in his hair.

"Before the Inquisition moved us here, we lived at Skyhold, which was an old castle in the middle of the mountains. It was beautiful there, but cold. On a clear day you could stand on the ramparts and see for miles." She misses Skyhold, sometimes, although she has grown to like Kirkwall a great deal. It had felt peaceful there, almost like Ahch-To. The history of the Gallows meant that sometimes she picked up dark things, just walking around.

"You're welcome to scar up the rest of my face if I ever do." He can feel the humor drifting through their connection and it leaves him feeling lighter as her emotions affect his. Everything about her was warm and light and left him feeling hope that had been so far out of his reach for so long.

Her hands combing through his hair and roaming his upper back also left him feeling content and maybe a little flush with desire for her to never stop touching him. He adjusts his arms, trying to get comfortable, and settles for leaving one of his hands flat on her stomach, within reach of hers should either want to lace their fingers together as they'd done so many times already.

"Mm." He hums in answer, listening but also feeling himself lulled into a restfulness by her touch, before asking, "I wonder - where do they come up with half of these names for places? Skyhold... Kirkwall... Amaranthine. I guess they might say the same about our home."

She doesn't feel entirely guilty for the scar marring his face, but when he tells her she could scar up the rest of his face there's an odd little bubble of guilt that settles in her stomach. It doesn't last long, though, so distracted by the feeling of him relaxing with her.

"They would. I've had a few people ask about Jakku. I have no idea why it's called Jakku. It's like a made up word. It just makes sense, once you assign it to something." She'd wondered about it, when she had been younger and felt her mind wandering in the dark of the cold nights. She spoke several languages, but most of the ones she spoke didn't have words that Jakku could have been rooted in. The ones that did, didn't exactly make sense. She'd given up, eventually. The first of many things that she gave up as her hard life began to chip away at her soul.

That's the past, now. Her stomach flutters a little at the feel of his hand pressed there, and after a moment of anxious flipping she reaches down to thread her fingers through his, her other hand remaining in his hair.

It was strange, this subtle give and take that gave him glimpses into her thoughts and her into his. He felt almost protective at the mention of her home planet, remembering vividly how much of a desert wasteland it had been. It was known to history as the planet where the Empire had fallen but to Rey it had only ever been the place where she'd been left to wait for parents who would never come for her. He was glad that she was here instead, no longer imprisoned by her past.

His fingers thread through hers immediately when their hands meet.

"Like Thedas sounds any better." He makes an amused sound. He has no doubt if they were to rattle off all their weird sounding planets the people she knew would be left with their heads spinning. Yet the were totally normal where they were from - just like it was totally normal that a girl had been left alone to work for meager rations on a planet that was a graveyard for remnants of a destroyed Empire. The thought left him feeling frustrated, but he bites it down for the sake of the moment.

He bites his lip, the only sign where his thoughts are turned, and tries to focus on feeling her hand playing with his hair. He brings their joined hands to his lips to kiss her fingers. There hands remind him of that first touch, the shock to his system when he'd reached out to her through the Force only to find her fingers solid and real. He'd told her then that she wasn't alone and he'd meant it.

She lets out a small laugh at his comment about Thedas, feeling that frustration in the back of his mind and that only endears him to her. That he's so disappointed in the way her life had treated her. She never would have thought anyone besides herself would feel that way.

Leaning her head forward she presses a kiss to the crown of his head, fingers keeping his hair from getting in her way. She feels that echo of that moment when they'd first touched, as she often had, especially after he'd arrived in Thedas. You're not alone.

She'd been hearing that phrase her entire life, just out of her range of understanding what it meant.

"Where were you born? Hosnian Prime?" She hazards the guess, if only because it had been the seat of the Republic, before it had been wiped out, anyway.

“Chandrila, actually. Back when the New Republic was first formed.” He remembered -somewhat vaguely, now - from a young age often being bounced between the care of his parents and the droids in their household. That life had only stood out in his memories for the fact that as he had grown, his powers along with him, the more alone and adrift he had felt. Leaving with Luke had been his mother’s attempt to help him.

“It made it easier for my mother to do her work in the senate.” And to get so busy with her work she had hardly any notice for him. That was a part of the failings of the past he wanted to forget. Rey promised a brighter future. He didn’t have the energy to even feel upset about his childhood, not when he had a beautiful woman showing him the affection and understanding that he’d long been starved of.

Her lips on him and her hands were like a soothing balm. If he focused, he could feel the Force as it moved between them, their shared energy lighting up his senses like starlight. He devoured the affection she gave him like a plant starved for nourishment. If he had a clear picture before of how he thought their lives would be directed by the Force it hadn’t been this. This was more than he deserved. She was more than he deserved and yet he wanted her and she wanted him.

Rey makes a noise in the back of her throat at his words, her lips pressed together as she continues stroking his hair and leans her head back onto the pillow. She can feel some of those memories, faint, the absence of his mother and father as the darkness inside him grew. It's hard for her to decide which one of them had it worse, him with his loving but distant parents who didn't know how to help him when he'd needed it, or her, with her parents who sold her into Unkar Plutt's service for drinking money.

There's really no comparing to the two. Their lives had been hard, but had somehow led them both to this moment, so all she feels is peace.

"I've seen pictures of Chandrila. I would have loved to see it."

"It wasn't nearly as hot there as Jakku. Plenty of water, too." He wouldn't hate showing it to her, if he was even welcome back there. As for his parents - he refused to think about it. The anger and resentment he felt was still fresh but it eclipsed the guilt he felt for killing his father. He hadn't hated him but he'd been disappointed by him and his mother. They had spent more time with their work than with him, leaving him to the care of droids. The thought makes him clench his fist into the sheets, though his hand in hers is gentle. He didn't want to hate them but it didn't change how disappointed he was in them. Rey had never even had the opportunity to be disappointed. Her parents had thrown her away like garbage.

"I won't do that to you. Ever." he whispers, knowing she can hear his thoughts as clearly as he could hers. He presses a kiss to a patch of exposed skin near her collarbone. Lifting himself up in bed, he moves in to kiss her and drown out the dark thoughts that swirled up inside of him, making him feel furious despite his attempts to cast it aside and be calm. He moves to bring her leg up to his hip, his hold firm beneath the bend of her knee. He reaches out for her hand again, pinning it to the bed while he presses searing kisses to her lips.

His anger on her behalf shouldn't surprise her by now, but it does. It's also surprising when he pulls himself up and kisses her with such fervor. She murmurs his name a few times between kisses, smoothing her hand that he doesn't have trapped through his hair. This is a feeling she's unaccustomed to, being so entirely wanted by someone else. She knows she has her place in the Resistance, her place in the story may be a mystery still, but she's important to people there. But they'd wanted Luke Skywalker first.

"I'll never leave you," she whispers against his lips, knowing she'd left once, but meaning she'd never do it again.

He loved feeling her hands in his hair, on his skin. He had never meant to be so tied to her and yet he was. He wanted to be deserving of it. Yet he knew once they leave Thedas they wouldn't be like this anymore. Perhaps it was childish to want to cling onto something like this so hard, but he did it anyway. It almost made him feel sad to hear her promise him something he wanted so badly he'd probably kill the entire galaxy just to have it.

When he finally stops attacking her lips with a ferocity that could melt the sun, he presses his forehead to hers and tries to catch his breath. He knows they should be sleeping, that it's probably incredibly late in the evening, and yet he wanted to keep kissing her and exploring one another and just talking - there wasn't anyone else who could match his tempo. The Force couldn't have chosen two better people to connect, it seemed.

"I don't think I could let you leave again," he whispers back, his chest rising and falling in heavy breaths against hers. Trying to find his self control and ignore just how much he wanted her, he focuses on his breathing and hers. She was so small beneath him, but far from fragile. He can almost see her kiss-bruised lips in the darkness of his room. The fact that he had done that made him almost swell with pride.

She's breathing as hard as he is when he finally breaks from her, and closes her eyes as they both steady their breaths. She feels warm and like she'd just climbed from the bottom to top of a Star Destroyer in record time, but the feeling sitting in her chest was one of completeness.

Smiling slightly she shifts her left hand from his hair to his cheek, his face cast in the soft green glow of her anchor shard. His features are sharp in the light, the only light in the room.

"I don't think I could either. I've never... I've never felt like this, Ben." Like if they were to be separated her heart might never recover. It scares her, more than a little. But she also doesn't want to stop it.

"It's new for me too, trust me." The green glow lit up her face just as much as it did his. When he lifts his hand to frame her face his shard joins hers, the green glow lighting up the space between them. The eerie green had made his stomach knot with terror when he'd first arrived. It had made him remember Luke, standing over him like a grim reaper with his blade drawn over him where he'd slept.

Now it didn't frighten him. Nothing could frighten him when it came to Rey. She brought him peace, chasing away what fears he had. He'd never known anyone to love an ugly monster like him and it brought him hope that all wasn't completely lost for him, that his soul wasn't lost after everything he'd done and was still capable of doing.

The way he looked at her now was with the same awe he'd felt when seeing her hold his grandfather's lightsaber - now her lightsaber - in the forest, snow falling around them in giant fluffy flakes that wet their hair and their cheeks. He felt like he was seeing her for the first time, just as he had back then.

"It's like - it feels like the Force. We don't control it, we just move with it." Yet he had tried a time or two to bend the Force, and all things in his life, to his will. He couldn't bend this to his will. He was already too far out under the tide.

The look on his face is overwhelming in itself. The feeling of his emotions, his words, mixing in the air around them and through them with hers. She doesn't know what to say to him, the feeling like she knows but is also scared sits heavy on her chest and makes it so she can't speak.

She stares back at him, her eyes drinking in the sight of him, so close that their breaths are one and she can feel his heart beating against her chest. Maybe she doesn't need words right now, because neither one of them excels with words. So she lifts her head to meet his lips with hers, ignoring the bruised and swollen feeling of them, simply wanting nothing more than to express that she feels that too. That this thing between them is like the Force.

He can feel it when she stares at him, that there's something she wants to say. He can sense what it is, even if it doesn't leave her mouth. He wants to tell her that he feels the same, I know is on the tip of his tongue and left unsaid as her mouth crashes against his. Unbidden, a moan slips past his lips as he embraces her, pressing her impossibly further against the soft expanse of his bed.

His brows knit together as he struggles to convey what he won't say. Large hands sliding up and down her back, he eventually gives up trying to find the words and focuses on kissing her over and over - they didn't need the words when they'd already sworn to one another they would never be alone again.

"Rey," he whispers her name between kisses, their combined heat actually becoming enough to make his hands feel sweaty as he digs his fingers into the back of her shirt. Surely she feels it too. It wasn't just an outward feeling of being impossibly warm. Inside he felt as if he was engulfed in a fever pitch, his veins alight with it wherever she touched him.

Edited 2018-04-20 04:30 (UTC)

She's only been fully submerged in water once in her life, and it had been a terrifying moment, when she hadn't been sure which way was up and if she'd be able to get there. She feels much the same, now, like she's drowning in him as he presses her into the mattress, enveloping her. The difference is this time she doesn't struggle to find the surface, but dives deeper. Her arms wrap around him and hold him as he holds her, like if they let go the moment might never come to them again.

Each time he whispers her name she answers with his name, her back arching up against his body in what is an entirely subconscious way. She feels the heat between them, wishing she hadn't worn the pants under her tunic. Though part of her knows that that wouldn't entirely help, this heat is burning from within them both.

He swallows thickly, feeling the same as she does: submerged and unwilling to rise back up out of it. His hands move automatically to her upper thighs as the thought flashes across his mind from hers - that it's too hot and whatever this is between them is devouring the both of them in a heat they can't slow down.

Her back lifting up slightly beneath him brings her flush against him, drawing another needy sound from him as his hands hook under her knees to align their hips against each other. A shiver passes down his spine and he fights the urge to cant his hips against hers, teeth dragging against her bottom lip as he registers the need for self control he isn't sure he has.

Finally unable to bear the swelling heat, he retreats enough to yank his shirt over his head and toss it somewhere to the floor as he struggles to breathe. His arms wrap around her again and he buries his face into the curve of her neck.

There's a voice in the back of her mind telling her to back off and put some distance between them, but it's going largely ignored as he hikes her legs up around his waist and she locks them there, hooking her heels in against the back of his calves. The pressure she feels building between them only seems more intense as she exhales in tiny sighs each time his body shifts a little or his teeth drag against her lip.

Him pulling away to tear off his shirt gives her a moment to breathe too, and she takes several deep breaths of air as he buries his face into her neck. She carefully unwraps her legs from his, her hands settling against his warm shoulders.

"We should probably get some sleep. I don't know what time it is but I usually like to get an early start." That probably won't be happening, now. She can function on little sleep, but not no sleep.

"Mm. Wouldn't want you missing out on things to fix." He was teasing, letting their slowly evening breaths lull him as his eyes fall shut. He shifts himself in bed so that he isn't crushing her beneath him - not that she seemed to mind several seconds ago. His arms stay wrapped around her and his face buried in her warmth.

Already he could feel the weight of sleep creeping up on him as she points it out. Whether or not she might wake up as early as she likes is debatable, but he planned to sleep beside her as long as she allowed him to.

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provenforce - 2018-04-20 14:40 (UTC) - Expand

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