Chapter Text
Prologue
They have gone down under the same white stars,
We shall no longer hear the little cry
Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.
W.B. Yeats
***
Ben fell to his knees. It was happening again. He’d broken the rules. Tentatively, he let his fingers brush the soft fur of the dog his father had finally convinced his mother that he needed. Still and silent, the puppy wasn’t moving. Light had exploded within him when his father had placed the little thing in his arms, tears had streamed down his cheeks in disbelief and Joy unlike anything he’d ever known, had made him sob. His father was grinning above him, his mother had been huffing and nattering on about responsibility, but clearly she was pleased because she wouldn’t stop patting the little thing on the head.
Dark brown sable fur, big brown eyes, and pure love had looked up at Ben. A tear fell from his eye onto the quiet form beside him. He’d been too late. The darkness had over taken him, as it did during his nightmares, and he’d passed out before he could warn C3P0. His plan had been working for months. He’d order the droid to make sure the puppy was watched at all times and safely tucked away for the night, but he’d fallen asleep in the drawing room before speaking with C3P0.
Both of his parents were off world, they had been for two weeks. It was only him, the droid, and the puppy in the house, and Ben had been very carefully trying to navigate the other presence in his mind. He’d had nightmares for years, but it was only after his 8th birthday that he’d started blacking out and waking up in strange places. The dead animals had started last year. The first time he’d woken with blood on his hands, he’d screamed for hours. C3P0 hadn’t known what to do, and had finally sedated Ben and tucked him into his bed. His mother had called that evening. Ben hadn’t known what to say, he didn’t want to tell her because he didn’t want to get in trouble, but at the same time he was scared that he couldn’t remember things.
He rubbed his hands across his face. The puppy had been a present for his 10th birthday, and all Ben could feel now was black despair and a sick shaky feeling that he was being punished. Nothing he loved stayed with him. It wasn’t allowed. He was forbidden from loving anything because it would eventually be taken from him. The darkness didn’t allow his happiness for very long. He’d get a brief taste of it, and then it would be snatched away. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
Ben slapped the floor beside him and felt heat rise inside of him, a wave of anger exploded out of him and he rolled over onto his hands and knees and screamed. Slamming his fists against the floor, pounding his anger into something solid, he screamed in furious rage and let the fire of his anger ravage his body.
That was how C3P0 found him.
***
Kylo Ren fastened his robe and took a deep breath before slipping his mask over his head. Meticulous observation of his surroundings had saved him on more than one occasion, and a disturbance in the force was more than enough to have his master summon him. Making sure he was ready before that happened would circumvent the relentless need for Snoke to berate him for an hour before he got to the point. Any mention that he’d felt it before Snoke would have him degraded at his master’s feet, it was better to be ready. His gloves were last, he tugged them on as he walked out of his rooms. Halfway to the observation deck his instincts were confirmed when Snoke’s voice echoed in his mind. Kylo didn’t smirk, he was far too controlled for that, but he briefly considered it. Predictable was his master….odd, he hadn’t considered a single act of defiance in years. Snoke had beat it out of him.
Kylo stopped his march towards his master and tilted his head. The force rippled, like a pebble skipping across a pond, raising the hair on his arms and furrowing his brow. He hadn’t felt something like this in years, not since he was a child, it was almost as if a bubble that surrounded him had been popped. He shivered at the ongoing sensations that this disturbance was eliciting from him. It had been years since he pondered his childhood, there was no need, Snoke’s philosophy did not welcome thoughts of past actions.
His mother had taken him to Naboo, in his first off-world excursion to the planet of her mother’s people, he’d been 5 at most. He’d thought the garden’s pretty and the palace extravagant, but he’d felt something calling to him all day. Easily escaping his droid nannies, he’d walked along the palace balconies and looked out over the vast expanse of water. The sunshine had glittered across the water mesmerizing him, and then the force had wrapped around him and rippled across his little body. It was merely an echo of what he felt now, but at five years old it had been a little terrifying. Why that place and that time he’d not understood, still didn’t if he was honest, but it was the same sort of feeling. Cool water shivering and rippling, light glistening on the waves and Kylo knew that whatever this meeting with his master had in store, it was about to change the course of his life. Not unlike his awakening on Naboo.
The force would accept nothing less.