10. Chapter 10

He has no idea what his master is playing at and that terrifies Kylo. Lord Snoke is not a stupid man and this level of caprice is unnerving, disorienting. The only thing he knows for sure is that it positively makes his skin crawl to watch those ghost-pale fingers glide over the girl’s face, similar but so different from the way he had fixed her nose. He thinks he’s going to be sick, but even looking away doesn’t completely block out the softest rasp of skin on skin, the quick harsh sounds of Rey’s breathing, and if anything seems to intensify the tension crowding his mind, co-mingling in his thoughts with the familiar razor-edge of stress that Lord Snoke’s presence brings.

Kylo keeps his eyes cast down and his mien neutral as Lord Snoke releases the girl. She’s a tool, she’s a tool and she’s here because Lord Snoke commanded it. He’s not involved, he feels nothing, makes himself think of still water as Snoke passes his approval on the crude corrective job and reiterates his interest in their connection. The bark of his name jerks his attention back to his master and he absorbs Lord Snoke’s question thoughtfully. Remember the excruciating pain he endured not even six hours ago and isn’t done sleeping off? That attitude will get him killed, and he responds with what he prays is his normal level of groveling subservience. “Yes, master.”

Master Snoke’s voice guides him back to that place of pain and helplessness, sweat and blood, each lancing pain scored anew. It lasts, hours or seconds he never knows, but more importantly it ends, leaving him drenched in cold sweat, unable to process the exchange between his master and their captive. The adrenaline fades and his attention returns to the velvet tones, the cadence rising and falling until he’s halfway bespelled, nodding along as the words caress his conscious. Something, very small, very far away protests this agreement, disagrees vehemently with the utterances, but it is weak, stupid; what does it know, anyway?

One question snaps him back to himself in an instant, “What would you do, were the positions reversed, and you held all the power over Kylo Ren?”

He knows what Lord Snoke is doing.

Kylo focuses on meditative breathing, tries not to think about the question and the tainted emotions it elicits. Rey doesn’t see the offer implicit in the question; that makes her either blind or stupid, or, he corrects himself, crippling naïve. Then Master Snoke provokes the girl and it’s a fight to keep track of which thoughts are his as moments flash behind his eyes, dyed in emotions that differ subtly from his recollections. It shifts again, and he doesn’t know what it is, but he’s back in his own head and Rey is collapsing beside him, darkness filming over his perceptions of the girl as she shakes and trembles as violently as he’s even seen of her in his severely limited experience. He feels nothing and it feels wrong, somehow, though he assumes he should be grateful for whatever reprieve ha can get. “Nothing.” Cautious, he touches the soiled mind, light dimmed by whatever his master had done. He recognizes the patina of joyous sadism as his master’s work; a false memory of blood and pain stolen from a body paralyzed with terror. He knows it well enough not to flinch from it, to be surprised only by the location, the source of such a feeling, instead of the intensity that would wreak hell upon him.

Master Snoke frowns at his analysis, the brisk voice pulling Kylo back into the moment. “You’re certain?”

“Yes, lord.”

“Well, that’s information, I suppose. On to the next thing, then.” Master Snoke banishes any sliver of optimism Kylo might have had that this was going to end well. Clearly, whatever his master seeks, they have somehow failed to deliver on. It seems reasonable to assume that, one way or another, they’ll pay for it.

Lord Snoke raises his hand and Rey crumples.

It might have been nice if his body had asked, if there could have been some kind of internal dialogue on the proper course of action, but there isn’t. In his defense, she sags to the side, very nearly toppling onto him, so he’s not left stranded in the position of having done something quite that idiotic in front of his master. It’s not even worth considering how Lord Snoke might respond to that sort of inanity. And once he’s got her insubstantial weight in his arms it’s not like’s going to drop her, either, so with a risky glance up at his lord, he lowers the girl to the stone, mindful of the knot on the back of her head.

“We will begin with dreams,” Master Snoke’s voice is quiet and resonant once more. “You will entertain my curiosity, Kylo Ren, and then I will explain.”

“It is not for you to explain yourself to me, master.” Kylo murmurs, eyes drifting back to the peaceful looking face bathed in the harsh white light and locks his hands together, the better to keep them to himself.

“Thank you, for that reminder as to my place in the natural order of things,” Lord Snoke’s voice stings with reproach. “If you have no other pressing advice to offer? I wish for you to join the girl’s dreams. You have done so before, I have seen it. You will replicate such an occurrence and, once there, I wish to determine if you can manipulate them. You may begin.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kylo inclines his head and settles beside the girl. It’s awkward at first, he has no idea what he’s doing, barely remembers the scattered recollections, wisps of light and sound and feel that had slipped through his fingers the morning after. After a moment of awkwardly kneeling by her shoulder he sits on the stone, lifts her head and eases it onto his knee. Her eyes twitch behind her lids and she curls onto her side, curling away from Master Snoke in her sleep, cheek rubbing ever so slightly against the cloth of his pants and letting out a tiny pathetic sound. It feels like the right thing to do, but he glances up at the silent watcher, his master, and waits for the slightest nod to proceed before resting his hand against her hair. The contact doesn’t spark, but flares like the last light of day and he just thinks the request, permission to enter, and he’s falling into her.

Rey’s dreams are diaphanous things, delicate flashes of color and sound, forming images that disintegrate as soon as he turns to watch them, flickering around a black mist that advances steadily, shot through with the finest threads of crimson lightning. It swirls up around her ankles, twining around hips, over her shoulders until it releases an eerie cackle in her ear. There’s a lightsaber in her hand, hilt cold and dark; it does not respond to her touch and as she drops it the ground falls away and a dart of smoke flicks into her ear, jerking her head to the side violently.

Change it, Snoke had said, and somehow Kylo does.

The darkness fades; the fear abates. The ground reforms, warps and they’re back in his room. She’s looking up at him, or maybe he’s looking down at her, the duality of perspective is confusing. With a little focus he finds he can keep them separate. She’s kneeling between his legs again, a fair facsimile of as they had been after his duel, but the bruises are gone from her skin and in takes only the slightest whim to replace discomfort with anticipation, arrange his fingers on her skin, sliding up her neck, brushing the soft round of her cheek and the corner of her lips. She sighs and he feels the caress of air against his neck, feels her fingers press over his thighs as she raises herself towards him. There’s a flash of bulbous blue eyes that struggle to overwhelm this moment, but he- they control this moment and the instant passes with just a shudder. Rey’s eyes are bright, delicate hooding so her eyelashes sweep the high rise of her cheekbones, tilting her face up, parting her lips ever so slightly-

“An interesting choice.” Then he is back on the stone floor with the girl’s head resting on his lap, the cool, amused eyes of his lord weighting on his shoulders. “That appears to be quite effective, I would say.”

Stupid, stupid of him. Kylo lifts the girl’s head and lays it back on the stones, doing his best not to think of the warmth that comes from the contact or the way the loose tendrils of her hair seem to reach for his hand as he removes it from her scalp. “Master, my lord, I did not mean-“

Supreme Leader Snoke silences the excuse with a Force-heavy wave of his hand that sends Kylo retreating a step and falling back to a knee. “We are not Jedi who deny passion, my apprentice. The things that grant power are never forbidden to us. No, it is the conflict you feel that will be your downfall in this. You fear the light in the girl, fear that the allure of her skin will be counted against you; lead you astray.”

Kylo inclines his head in recognition of the truth. “Please, master, tell me I’m wrong.”

Master Snoke snorts and bowls Kylo over with a casual gesture. “Your doubts are vile little worms. I cannot stop you from thinking them but you will refrain from referencing them in my presence. Ben Solo was a child of light; he died so that Kylo Ren could be born. Does he yet live?”

His injuries protest mightily as they rub against the unyielding stone through his tunic, but hearing the loathsome name is a thousand times worse. “No, lord.”

“Then this girl needs not be any different. She dreams of rescue, of escape, did you know? I will be grievously disappointed if such a thing were to pass.”

Kylo glances at the huddled form on the stone. “That is not unexpected,” He grunts, and then mutters, more softly, “She is an enormously stubborn creature.” She had defied him, resisted at every turn up to this point, it’s only suspected that she continue to do so. Anything else would be downright alarming. Still, it’s something that needs to be monitored more closely going forward. The decision gives him the courage to give voice to the inquiry that has been dancing around his mind since their first meeting with his master. “My lord, are you intending my replacement with this girl?”

The smirk from the lipless mouth sends fingers of ice down his spine. “I have considered it, Kylo Ren, meditated for hours on the proper course of action. You disappoint me often, as I hope I make clear, and yet, approach, child.”

His legs shake with something that doesn’t have anything to do with exhaustion and Kylo mounts the steps, returning to his knees before the hem of his master’s robe. Clearing his mind he braces his weight on his arms and waits for the punishment to fall.

There’s the briefest scent of Rey’s skin before those long thin fingers card through his hair, lifting it from where sweat has plastered it against his neck. “And yet,” His master continues, in that deep, sonorous voice of his, “And yet I have no wish to be rid of you. We have put so much work into your training, yes? Twenty long years; it seems wasteful to discard those efforts. You are not without strength, without the potential for greatness.” The fingers tug lightly on his scalp, nudging his face up. “The girl need not live in your mind as a rival if you continue to meet the lowest of my expectations.”

The pressure on his scalp relaxes and Kylo lowers his head until it hangs between his shoulders, “I will be a worthy apprentice, master.” His shoulders hitch as a long fingertip grazes the back of his neck.

“I certainly hope so,” Lord Snoke nods his agreement and retracts his hand. “Do what needs be done to bind the girl to our power. Teach her, amuse her, whatever it takes.”

“She will resist; she loathes our order on principle.”

“Recanting your promise so soon?” His master sneers, “Walk the galleries with her, I permit it. Let her see the magnificence of what she can achieve if she dares.” His eyes slide into the wide empty black of the cavern overhead. “Think well on how you will accomplish your task, my apprentice. I wish to hear good progress is being made. Now go, back to bed with the both of you.”

Kylo bows again, forehead brushing the stone and then turns his back on his master and jogs down the terraced steps, stopping just short of the sleeping girl. Lord Snoke’s expression brings uncomfortable things to mind and so he nudges her shoulder with the toe of his boot rather than reach into the Force to awaken her. “Time to go.”

The girl comes awake all at once, scrambling into a crouch and groping blindly for a weapon that isn’t there. He watches the cognizance return as she becomes aware of her surroundings and, kneading at sleep crusted eyes, follows him back out of the cavern, sleep wearing away to be replaced with a crackling annoyance. “What happened?”