adarkergray | Kenoma

Kenoma

Previously:
Escape From Starkiller Base
At the Monuments of Madness
A Living Weapon

To Jacob's surprise, they made it to Ahch-To's system without incident - but then, it was clear now that the Force was on their side. As per his calculations, they'd dropped out of hyperspace a few hundred thousand kilometers away, just beyond its outermost moon's orbit, and as they headed toward the planet at sublight speeds, he tried to ignore the way his protective instincts were going into overdrive.

However, the closer they got to the planet, the more he couldn't help being aware that everyone there, everyone they were going to see, was someone who'd hurt Kylo terribly, and Force, how could Jacob even begin to justify taking him down there? To put him in that level of danger, in the kind of condition he was in--

He made himself take a deep breath, though the fingers of his free hand were clamped tightly around the hilt of one of his lightsabers. The urge was incredibly strong to tell Kylo that he couldn't in good conscience do this, that there had to be another, better way to defeat Snoke, and they would find it - but, deep down, he knew that if there was, the Force would have shown it to Kylo instead. He had to have faith in his master, and in the Force.

Instead, right now, he had more sympathy than ever for why Snoke wanted to destroy the Force's will - not that he had any sympathy for Snoke himself. That thought was enough to settle his nerves slightly by reminding what they were here for, why it was important, why they could all work together just this once.

Snoke had to die. That was the one thing they all could agree on.

Finally, he calmed his mind enough to push his senses outward through the Force, to see whose presence he could detect. Even this close in, he still couldn't pick up Skywalker, but he could sort out Rey and General Organa from the background energy of the planet. He turned to Kylo. "...Your mom's still here. Do you want me to ask her to leave?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If Luke had done anything to endanger the recovery of the person Jacob cared about most in the entire galaxy, he probably wouldn't have stopped at just beating him - he would have gotten as far into killing Luke slowly and painfully as Rey would've allowed. Even now, seeing the book intact, he didn't fully relax, and was prepared to make a telekinetic grab for it just in case.

Luke, meanwhile, just gave Rey a sad look as he got to his feet and handed the text back over. "I don't blame you for thinking I'd be capable of that." At least he had a realistic idea of where he stood with them, anyway. "...The truth is, I've never read any of these texts before, but I wanted to see if there was anything in them that might help me make amends for... everything. And looking through this one, I think the techniques it contains are too risky for any of us to have a full grasp of before Snoke is dead. He's compromised every single one of us before, and the advantage we'd gain by using these on... Kylo... is offset by the danger of Snoke figuring out how to use them on himself."

"Your opinion is duly noted," Jacob replied stiffly, moving subtly to put his arm between Luke and the text, "but the only person here who gets to make that call is Lord Kylo Ren himself. He's the only one who has the right to make those kinds of decisions about his health."

Rey was hesitant to accept Luke Skywalker’s answer. The Force burned brightly inside her as her anger spiked. The waves hit the shore with equal passion. The wind picked up. The break in the rain was nearly over.

“You had all this time. You had me, at your doorstep, desperately trying to find my place in all this. You knew that Snoke was out there, what he was, what he could do... You only now decide it’s worth trying to make amends?!”

There was evidence of sincerity in Luke’s voice, though. He even called his nephew Kylo, albeit begrudgingly. That was something.

How Kylo would feel about any of this had yet to be determined.

Jacob cut in, his voice icy. "With his track record, I would've wanted to sit this one out, too. But right now, he's considering the possibility that maybe the fact that we're all here is a sign from the Force that there's finally something he can do, to at least make things better for the family he's wronged if not for the galaxy as a whole. That maybe there's something he can touch without it turning to shit. But he's not convinced, especially since he knows how this is going to play out - that there is nothing he can do to prevent the First Order from continuing to prosecute the war against the New Republic until one side emerges victorious. He's still contemplating the idea that maybe continuing to sit on his hands will save a few more lives than giving my master's strength back to the First Order. Do I have it about right?"

Luke said nothing, but his expression spoke volumes.

Jacob continued, "Let me just resolve that dilemma for you right now: you're wrong. Snoke has made plans for how his work is to continue after his death, and Lord Kylo Ren and I are the only ones who can put a stop to them and save the galaxy from a much greater cataclysm than this war. We're the only ones who even know where to start looking for all the pieces of what he's done. And that's where our attention is going to be focused - not on the war. That's in soon-to-be-Supreme Leader Hux's hands."

That was where Jacob's priorities were, anyway: first, establishing a life, a routine, for the children that would provide them the stability and structure they needed to feel secure and begin healing from what Snoke had done to them, tracking down tutors and therapists for them as needed, and then going in search of and dismantling the remaining pieces of what Snoke had set in motion. Jacob wouldn't be considering the possibility of taking on any more assassinations for at least the next year, if not longer, and he'd make damn sure that Hux understood why ensuring the psychological stability of Kylo's children was vital to the safety of the entire First Order.

Silently, Rey fumed. The war. The very reason that General Leia had sent her to bring back Master Luke Skywalker in the first place. Cut off from the front lines and separated from the likes of Finn and Poe, it seemed like such an inconsequential thing. It paled in comparison to the fight against Snoke and the will of the Force, and yet she inwardly cursed herself for nearly forgetting what her friends were still sacrificing themselves for.

Any illusions anyone might have had about the Knights’ loyalties was immediately cast aside. Luke narrowed his eyes at the mention of the First Order, and Rey turned away.

“When this is over, when Snoke is gone, we will all go our separate ways. All of us.” She insisted. “Until then, we have to fight. We have to do whatever it takes or there won’t be a war to win. There won’t be a galaxy worth saving.”

She turned on Luke as thunder rolled overhead.

“Kylo Ren is a monster that YOU made and then handed to Snoke to use until he was all used up! That... THAT is the future of the galaxy if Snoke wins! And if Kylo dies, Snoke will win. Can you live with yourself knowing that? Well, I can’t!”

Turning her back to Skywalker, she marched back toward the ships.

((also, happy new year! :D))

Jacob's expression softened just marginally when he noticed that, from Luke's, it was clear how much Skywalker knew he'd deserved all of that. "No matter how much evil anyone's done, it's never too late for them to find it in themselves to do the right thing. Lord Kylo Ren and I might be monsters, but we've vowed that the cycle ends with us. We're not going to allow Snoke to get his claws into any more innocent Force sensitive children, to turn them into what we are, and we're not going to pick up where he left off, either. Or where the Jedi Order left off, for that matter."

Luke glanced away. "I wish I'd been that wise, at your age. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble."

"Yeah, well, we can only deal with the way things are now. Oh, and by the way, ask the next time you want to borrow something." Remembering where he'd left the rest of the texts, he returned to the hut to pick them up, before heading back to his ship. He made it up the boarding ramp just as the rain started again, and extended his senses in the Force to figure out whether Kylo was even awake right now.

What greeted him was the Force. Kylo was currently awake, and he was meditating specifically on the planet’s energy. When the doors had closed, he spoke both aloud and directly into Jacob’s mind, “Something happened down there beyond the meeting with the slicer. I felt him... in the Force. I felt Skywalker...”

It was a brief feeling, a small flicker of the Force that was no longer being actively suppressed. However, the moment Kylo felt it, it was gone again. Skywalker was once again a void in the Force, locking himself away like the coward that he’d always been. It was a very sharp contrast to Rey, who he felt more strongly in the Force than he ever had before.

As Jacob entered the room, Kylo pulled himself out of his trance. He opened his eyes, and turned toward his apprentice.

“Did you feel it too?”

"I felt it." He sat down with Kylo, and explained to him everything that had happened after the meeting with the slicer. "The part about Snoke figuring out how to heal himself by compromising one of us if we start practicing the technique on you... I feel like that possibility is less likely than the probability that Luke was just throwing it out there to spin out the clock. That way, his hands are... well, not clean, but not any dirtier if something happens to you. Or maybe I'm wrong, because it did seem like he was starting to truly consider doing the right thing. Either way, you're the only one who can truly assess the risk, and whether it's worth taking."

Of course, Jacob knew what answer he was hoping for. If there was anything he could do for his master that might even help ease his suffering a little, Jacob wanted to do it, wanted to believe it was safe to carry out; he wanted something real, and solid, and tangible to go in their favor for a change, rather than having to gamble on everything. The condition Kylo was still in broke his heart, and the idea of him going up against Snoke like this was still one of the worst things he could imagine.

Kylo's heart could have stopped and he wouldn't have noticed. As Jacob revealed what Rey had found within those tomes, he felt a surge of hope that was matched only by his rescue from the Finalizer weapons array itself.

Like any Dark Side adept, he'd written off Force healing as an impossibility. He could prolong his life or tap into his pain as he did the Force wound. He could endure. At least, he could endure as long as he had to. Jacob's experiments had yet to yield complete results - through no fault of his apprentice's ability, simply because sufficient time hadn't yet passed. Everything had happened so quickly... The thought of getting his strength back, before they were forced to take on Snoke, without having to resort to debilitating treatments, was like a dream come true.

He didn't care about the opinion of the man who betrayed him and tried to kill him in his sleep. But he did care about Jacob's opinions, and that was why he wiped the tears of anticipation from his eyes and forced himself to think critically about the situation.

"...When we first started combing through the texts... you warned me to be mindful about what I saw. Skywalker's motives... will never be pure. But he's... he's not wrong..." Kylo trembled just admitting that. "It's less of a threat for you, but I'm the one who can connect us to Snoke. If one side builds a bridge, the other side can cross it."

Jacob had expressed similar concern. And that, Kylo couldn't discount so easily.

"We also don't know what it might do to the Force wound. Without that..." He didn't need to finish. The amount of power that it would take to sustain their techniques through a long-distance battle was more than any normal Force user could conjure up. They would drain themselves to death trying.

More than anything, Kylo wanted to try Rey's techniques. He desperately wanted to rid his body of this cancer, regain his strength, be free of the constant pain... But at what risk? What potential cost?

"I don't think..." Kylo felt a tear slide down his cheek as he dashed his own hopes. "I don't think we can chance it, Jacob. Not until it's over..."

Jacob pulled him into an embrace, trying not to break down crying himself. So far, he'd barely begun allowing himself to hope, yet the pain was still worse than he expected. "Oh, Kylo..." The thought briefly crossed his mind that by then, it might be too late, but he shoved it away hurriedly. This wouldn't be the end; Kylo's children needed him too much for Snoke to take him down. Jacob needed him too much.

And he hated it, that nothing ever seemed to go their way, and that even when they were out of Snoke's grasp, he still managed to control them. Unlike this morning, however, he wouldn't allow the injustice of it all to get the better of him - not when, this time, it was Kylo who needed Jacob to be strong for both of them. This time, the hate only fueled his determination. "...Once we end that son of a bitch, I promise we're not going to waste another second. For now, I'll learn as much as I can about the foundation of these techniques, so that once he's dead I can master them as quickly as possible. Then, we're going to put you right - along with everything else he tried to destroy for his own benefit."

That was the belief Jacob had to hold onto, because it was the only way they might stand a chance of making it out the other side of this - if they didn't allow in the possibility that Snoke might be able to defeat them, that they might not all survive, then maybe it wouldn't come to pass.

He held Kylo for a long time, until finally, Jacob felt him starting to pull back. "...At least there's one positive in all this. Rey has a good feeling about those healing techniques, and I trust her instincts. When the time comes, I think we'll have something that actually works. Until then... we just need to keep it together."

Somehow, Kylo held it together while in Jacob’s arms. Despite the temporary blow, if Jacob trusted Rey’s instincts, if there was something to these ancient techniques that wasn’t cut off form them, then he too would trust it.

“Your experiments... your samples. You could test the techniques on that. You and Rey both.” He offered, along with insisting he could provide more. “But this... this is something I should not be privy to. We can’t let Snoke have access to this or...”

Kylo looked over at the tome sitting by his bedside. He didn’t say the rest out loud, now daring to hope that he hadn’t already inadvertantly doomed them all from the start. Just what did Snoke already know of their plans? Could he counter them? Was this all a demonstration in futility or a cruel punishment for their doubt and betrayal?

No. He couldn’t let himself think that way any more than Jacob could allow himself to believe that Kylo’s condition might be terminal by the time they finally take down Snoke.

“This is why you must be the one to fight.” It was clearer to him now than it had ever been before. “And we need to engage him... soon...”

The assertion that he'd need to be the one to fight caught Jacob by surprise. "Me? I would've thought... I mean, I don't know him the way you do." But, even as the words left his mouth, he realized that was exactly the point. He didn't have the kind of twisted and deeply personal relationship with Snoke that Kylo did; he didn't have the hundred triggers meant to bring him back in line, into instant, terrified submission, that Snoke had spent three decades instilling in Kylo. Now that Jacob had learned to spot his unique brand of mind trick, Snoke's influence over him was relatively minimal. It'd have to be him.

"...but if you have faith in me, then I know I can do it. With your power at my back, I won't let him best me." He refused to let the thought cross his mind that this was an impossibly heavy burden. Nothing his master had asked from him had ever been too much - and even if it had been, he wouldn't have admitted it, and he'd find a way to pull it off somehow. Killing Snoke would be no different.

Not to mention that if anyone could win their children over, and break Snoke's grip on them for just long enough, it was Jacob.

"Anyway, you have a really good idea for how Rey and I can practice the Force healing techniques she found. I went a little overboard on setting up control samples, because I wanted to be certain that the results I was getting were real - and I definitely have enough to set some up as another trial group." He was thankful now that he'd been so thorough, because if it hadn't been for that, he'd have to sacrifice the control samples; he hadn't been able to bring the equipment necessary to grow more in a very short time frame with them when they'd left Xashiri, and the replacements they'd acquired on Varunabhakti were meant for maintaining the mass of the existing specimens rather than growing out new ones.

"Do I want to kill him myself?" he asked the obvious rhetorical question. "Of course... But your gifts, your talents... your control over body and mind... You can fight in ways that no one else can. You can kill those who no one else can."

There were many reasons why Snoke isolated his knights and had them specialize so severely. In the end, it kept them from taking him down. Where Jacob had accuracy and precision, Kylo had raw strength. His was a Force power bred from emotion, harnessed and weaponized. The opening of a Force wound was part of that. But while he could cleave a planet apart, he had little training in skills that required true finesse - something he only saw the implications of when his physical strength was gone. Kylo was an open book, torn at the seams but incredibly easy to read. Snoke, after all, wouldn't put power into anyone he couldn't control.

"You won't just have my power at your back, Jacob. You'll have all of it. Whatever you need, you take it. Don't question. Don't resist." he insisted sternly. This was a master's order to his apprentice, and it would not be up for debate. "Snoke never taught me how to share. I guess I figured out a few things all on my own."

"...I understand, sir." He hoped Kylo truly had figured out how to share, rather than just gutting himself for another's benefit - the distinction was more difficult in practice than one might think, and even Jacob had had trouble with it in some ways. The way Jacob had killed Asher, and its repercussions, indicated Kylo was still leaning strongly toward the latter; however, that didn't mean Jacob could afford to hesitate. There were things at stake here that were more important than either of their lives. Jacob just hoped that Rey would be able to keep Kylo alive through all of it.

Between the two of them, Snoke and Jacob probably wouldn't make it easy.

He pulled Kylo in to press their foreheads together for a moment. "No matter what it takes, I will destroy Snoke." And when the time came, he wouldn't let anything distract him from tha task. He couldn't afford to, for the galaxy's sake - not that the galaxy was what mattered to him. Killing Snoke quickly and decisively was also the only way Kylo would survive long enough to get the job done.

He pulled back at last. "...Of course, first we all need to survive that long. And right now, that entails getting some lunch in you."

It may not have been true sharing. However, it was on par with the way Jacob could heal by taking the damage onto himself or someone else. The only difference was that because of the Force wound being fueled by the magnitude of power on this island, the effect on Kylo was negligible. It may as well have been sharing if you could replenish what’s taken at basically the same rate.

For now, it would have to do,

“It does. Yes.” He admitted, regardless of whether he was hungry.

When Jacob returned with food, Kylo looked up from the cover of the book he was longingly staring at.

“Have you found anything about Force transfer?” He asked softy. “If there is anything I need to understand more completely, it’s that...”

Practicing it was a very dangerous proposition, and he couldn’t even count on it happening when he wanted it to yet. It just kind if happened. Which, for a strateg integral to the fight, wasn’t good enough.

"Nothing yet." Jacob sighed softly, closing his eyes for a moment. "We have material about using the pure energy of the light side to cut a target off from the Force, about using the balance of the light and dark sides to heal, about how to create a Force neutral bubble, where one can neither draw on the Force nor manipulate others through it... but the one technique we'll be relying on the most, I haven't seen documented yet." He opened his eyes again, staring down at his plate. "...Unless you count Thuban's research. Which, I really don't want to, since I don't think it's safe for me to be manipulating your Force wound to that degree. You have control over it now - enough control, anyway - but we don't know what will happen if I aggravate it."

Thuban's research was all about using Force wounds to wipe out targets at a distance, but it was geared toward drawing on the large Force wounds caused by massive disasters - and while, in theory, it should be scalable, there was even more risk in that knowledge than in that of Force healing. Jacob wouldn't put it past Snoke to do to at least one of the children the same thing he'd done to their father - or, at the very least, he might decide to take them all on a field trip to Endor or the ashes of Alderaan to use the techniques on the scale at which they'd been developed.

Kylo had an intimate knowledge of Thuban's research, but it had been filtered through Snoke for his own aims, and wasn't anywhere close to the same level as everything Jacob had studied.

"Anything you may need to do, whether it's safe or not... I know you need to hide it from me." Kylo sighed. He cursed himself for not being careful enough before this point. They should have been thinking this way all along. "Manipulating the Force wound... using me as a literal weapon instead of just drawing on the energy I collect with it... What are the advantages? And more importantly, what are the risks?"

While Kylo was still haunted by flashbacks of the Finalizer weapons array, he also knew that whatever Jacob was thinking would be over quickly. If he knew the worst outcome, perhaps he might be able to prepare himself for it. Or shield himself from it, should Snoke have the same idea.

Jacob got to his feet, and began to pace as he laid it all out. "Snoke knows my preferred methods of attack, and he's had years to figure out the best way to protect himself against them. Even drawing on your strength, I can't simply reach out through the Force and unzip his aorta like a raincoat the way I did to Asher, no matter how much I'd like to. He also knows the strategies we both use for mental incursions against a target, and it would be extremely difficult to overpower or outmaneuver him with our usual methods - and even if Rey didn't have another role in all this, putting her directly against Snoke, relying on her abilities for an element of surprise, would be too dangerous for her. But at the same time, we're not going to be able to beat him unless we come at him with something he hasn't seen before." Of course, they both already knew that part, and it was what had brought them here to begin with.

"Using the Force wound to drain his strength and shut him off from the Force is too risky - he's going to start drawing from your children to keep himself intact and attempt a counterattack." That, they also both knew already; they'd examined the idea the day before. "But, there's another way. One I think may actually be a viable strategy." Of course, he had to keep the details of it from Kylo, for now, but Snoke couldn't take energy from the children if Jacob and Kylo were already pushing as much power into him as he could handle - dark and destructive, poisonous energies, drawn from the depths of the Force, essentially a modified version of the wound transfer technique. It would also require drawing off of him at the same time, rather than separating the two phases of the technique, to prevent him from trying to bleed that energy off into the children to save himself - but if Jacob could pull it off, then it would be their best shot. And once he'd learned the technique Leia had discovered for creating a Force neutral bubble, he'd have that to serve as a backup, for keeping the children safe from any attempt by Snoke to spread the damage around.

On the surface, it seemed like they might finally have a reason for cautious optimism, but of course there was a snag. "As long as what we're attempting to do doesn't rip the Force wound wide open in the process and make it uncontrollable, or impossible to fully heal. You know of Darth Nihilus, probably in more detail than I do, and what he was by the end - I won't see you become something like that. Especially not when you have family who need you." And it was obvious he wasn't talking about Luke and Leia.

Edited 2019-01-20 17:19 (UTC)

Kylo partially closed his mind as Jacob spoke, so he wouldn't pick up on any more than weak surface thoughts. He couldn't risk compromising the only plan that Snoke may not yet be able to predict. He got the vague sense of energy being redirected, but more than that, a dishonest feeling of cautious optimism. That, he decided, would have to be enough.

"I know the legends of Darth Nihilus..." Kylo sighed uneasily. "And of a Jedi exile that shared this... affliction..."

The ancient Sith were known for using existing Force wounds to hide their presence, leech power and bend it to their own will. But only Darth Nihilus carried that wound inside of him, and with it, could drain the life force from an entire planet. Snoke usually presented the technique as a choice, as a weapon that could be wielded. But more than once, veiled allusions had been made to something far less controllable - a hunger that once indulged in, could never truly be satiated.

That was the difference between Darth Nihilus and the Jedi woman: Intent. The light within her prevented her from giving into feeding the wound. Kylo could not make the same exact claims.

In part, perhaps he could. Aboard the Finalizer, he was hardly a willing participant. Energy was forced in so that energy could be expelled with enough force to mimic a Death Star. The serum made it more destructive and his body paid a very hefty price.

Once he was rescued, the Force wound remained a generally passive threat. Depending on Kylo's physical and mental states, the rate at which it absorbed energy from life around it ebbed and flowed. Jacob knew the risk and willingly let it happen. It was technically happening right now, albeit on an unconscious level.

But training in the cave in Ahch-To was different. The promise with which he offered his energy to Jacob carried the weight of knowing there would be plenty more where that came from. Kylo had drawn on the massive reservoirs of Force energy within the planet, and he'd done it willingly. He consciously fed the Force wound and felt that power coursing through his broken body. He'd tasted Nihilus' feast before, but in the span of a single training session, he'd effectively eaten a full meal.

It was an honest miracle (or maybe a testament to Kylo having so much of both darkness and light inside him) that he hadn't craved that feeling since the moment they left the cave. Were he truly as dark as his family once feared, he would already be well on his way to being Dark Nihilus' spiritual successor.

He stirred his porridge with an almost metaphorical disinterest. "The difference between them... One consciously fed it. The other didn't. One became ravenous. The other... I guess she simply lacked the appetite for power."

"So... which side do you think you'll fall on?" Even before he asked, Jacob understood the sheer magnitude of the question. Ever since Snoke had taken the reins of Kylo's life, he'd driven him into a headlong quest for power - for more, greater, more extraordinary, more unique. The Force wound was a natural, logical outcome of years of Snoke goading him onward, and it was a course that would be difficult for him to break from now, even knowing precisely what was at stake - or perhaps because of it. Because there was not only the matter of what Kylo had been through, but also where he had come from.

"Everything your grandfather did... everything he became... all of it began with only wanting the power to save his family." Would Kylo admit to his grandfather's flaws and shortcomings, and learn from them? Or would he truly finish what Darth Vader had started? "I have faith in your ability to be better than him, to do the right thing, but you have to have faith in yourself." He knew how much that was asking, however; Snoke had gone out of his way for many years to try to make it impossible.

It was a question that ran straight through the Force wound, into the depths of Kylo's soul. Namely, because Jacob had asked it in another way only a short while ago.

It was with sheer force of will that he turned down his apprentice's pleas to heal him before the battle - in part to prevent Snoke from using them, but mostly to keep the Force wound active and intact. They were going to need that power. Kylo was certain of it. Was he truly making his grandfather's choices all over again? No... This went beyond anything Darth Vader was ever capable of...

He let out a long sigh and stirred the porridge again.

"If it's truly my choice... then neither." he admitted. "All of my life, the battle between the light and the dark has been tearing me apart. The Jedi are wrong. The Sith are wrong. Snoke... is wrong. The answer isn't one side or the other. It's both."

Kylo knew the odds were stacked against him in that. There were reasons why opposing extremes existed since the earliest days. Many a Jedi were driven mad attempting to walk both paths at the same time, but this temple was proof that it wasn't just possible. People had lived such a discipline once before, and they had thrived.

"It's balance."

For the first time in days, Jacob allowed himself a genuine, if brief, smile. The fact that Kylo was asserting his faith in his own judgment, in himself, brought Jacob real hope for the first time since all of this had begun. Kylo was still his master, after all, and being able to look to him for guidance, for the right course of action, meant that everything in Jacob's world was starting to shift back in its proper order. "...Then I think that maybe what I have in mind will work."

In his own way, Jacob had come to the same conclusion as Kylo that balance was what was truly needed; his plan hinged on it, after all, as it depended not on cutting Snoke off from the Force and his victims, or draining the life out of him, or overloading him with destructive energies beyond his capacity to contain, but on all of the above, simultaneously. The only way they could accomplish that was through the Force wound, and if Kylo had a strategy for keeping control of it for just long enough, then Jacob could develop and practice a plan of attack without needing to be overcautious. "Together, I think we really can do this."

Throughout his life, Kylo was led and manipulated, pulled in various directions by masters who all thought they could decide his fate. Ironically, it wasn’t until he was too weak to physically stand on his own two feet that he finally stood up for his own destiny. After Thuban’s defeat, he might have returned to Snoke a devoted disciple, but now, he was his own man. Not a Jedi. Not a Sith. Simply an acolyte of the Force.

He was more at peace with himself, and with the Force, than he’d ever been before. The way the Force wound seemed to reflect that, the weak pull it had on the energy around him, gave him faith that he could control it when the time came.

“Then, while you work to that end, I will turn my focus inward... Continue pushing the boundaries of the Force wound. And pushing myself to regain what strength I can.”

He finally took a bite of porridge.

“I know you will not fail. Neither will I.”

Jacob could sense that quiet strength and self-assurance emanating from his master, and it did a great deal to help set his mind at ease. Even in just the past few days, Kylo's confidence had grown more than it had in the rest of the years Jacob had known him - to the point where, this morning, when Jacob's last nerve was beginning to fray, Kylo had found a way to knit it back together for him. And right now, there was nothing Jacob needed more than the reminder that not everything had to be on his shoulders, that the two of them were a team and could split their burdens between them.

He reached out and gave Kylo's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I am so, so proud to have you as my master." Finally, he turned his attention back to his own lunch; the sooner he finished eating, the sooner he could get back with Rey about figuring out those Force healing techniques she had discovered. Even once Snoke was defeated, their timetable for actually applying those techniques was going to be limited by the fact that they'd have to get to their children as soon as possible - and Rey had already refused to go back with them.

Even in just the last few days, Kylo had seen and experienced the Force in ways his previous masters couldn’t even comprehend. For the first time in his life, he was free of the pain he felt inside - even if, in other ways, he was in sheer agony. He’d claimed that the Force was with them before, but now, he truly understood what that meant.

When they’d finished eating and Jacob took his leave, Kylo returned to his earlier routine of exercise and meditation. He’d experimented with the Force wound before, specifically how the pull increased when he exerted himself physically and decreased when his body was relaxed. This afternoon, he focused on control. He worked himself to a point where he was supplementing his strength with the Force wound, felt the feeling of power rush over him and then cut it off.

It wasn’t an easy task. Recognizing those states wasn’t always straightforward; controlling them was even less straightforward. His first attempt took over an hour. But as he repeated his exercise, it got a little easier to feel the changes in his energy and in the Force. Dark, then light. Over and over again...

Through the changes he saw in his master, Jacob was also coming to understand exactly what it meant that the Force was with them. Kylo's new self-assurance was also making it easier to remember the discussion they'd had before they came here, about one aspect of opening oneself to balance in the Force: about not doing, nor seeking, but simply accepting the Force. To master a healing technique derived from that balance, Jacob had a feeling that was going to be the most important thing to keep in mind.

He extended his senses in the Force as he stepped back outside, and noted that the rain had let up just enough for Rey to return to her hut rather than going back to Leia's ship. He made his way down to join her, and found her poring over the text they'd rescued from Luke earlier. "Is it all still there? Luke didn't remove any sections, did he?"

Rey relaxed slightly. "It's fine. He didn't do anything to it."

"Would you mind if we went over it together?" When Rey motioned for him to join her, he sat down next to her on the bed - and while she flinched slightly when their shoulders brushed, he noticed she didn't move to put distance between them.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject