You Need a Teacher
In which even a Force bond can’t prevent major misunderstandings.
On a First Order cruiser, surrounded by First Order officers, at a glossy black table emblazoned with the red First Order emblem, Rey sat at Kylo’s right hand.
Unease coiled through her. Join me, he’d said on the Supremacy, holding out that same hand while the helpless Resistance transports were blasted out of the sky one by one—
No. No. This wasn’t the same. She’d made sure the Resistance got away. Everyone here had turned their backs on the First Order. They were all talking now to find a way to be free of it. Not the same thing at all.
The Precursor had transmitted the success of its mission—then ceased all communication. The Security Bureau personnel had deactivated and destroyed all tracking devices. The ship ran dark and silent through the hyperspace lanes, headed toward two star destroyers near some planet called Rakata. She had to ask Kylo why Rakata was a bad place to be.
Discussion went back and forth between him and the officers. The best way to approach the Relentless and the Raptor. How to get the Nightfolk aboard. The star destroyers would normally report contact with the Precursor, but the commander, as a member of the Security Bureau, could order the ships to comm silence.
Hands folded on the table, Rey listened, reminding herself that you always felt lost and stupid until you figured out how some new thing worked.
The hassash didn’t accompany Kylo today, but four Nightfolk dressed in skins and mallik-pelt cloaks stood behind him. The officers’ discomfort at their presence shaded at the edges to fear.
Not good, Rey thought. Caution and awareness of danger were one thing, but fear made bad decisions. She knew that for a fact. If she was going along with all this, she didn’t want to get caught in someone else’s mistake.
You have power, Verrannallu had said. She didn’t feel like she had power. What was it supposed to feel like?
Since I have power, she thought, defiant, I can make these people not be afraid of the Nightfolk.
She reached for the Force.
The dark flowed out from the Nightfolk, curling through the room and around everyone in it. They didn’t seem to be feeding; it was just part of what they were. Darkness surrounded Kylo, too, although his was more controlled and contained, and—
Rey blinked, looking closer. His darkness was shot through now with light like the shooting stars the streaked Jakku’s nights. (Space junk falling, someone had told her once, but those brilliant flashes lit the night with streaks of color like a celebration.)
She thought of Kylo’s laughter this morning. She’d sensed how it scared him, but she’d been so astonished and thrilled hearing it she could hardly keep from grabbing him and swinging around him right there on the training room floor. Like everything that was really him was breaking free little by little.
She knew then what to do.
Rey opened herself, blending her light with the darkness, turning it into a soft, calm grey that ebbed gently around the room.
Kylo glanced at her sharply. His gloved hand came to rest on her knee. Through the bond, she felt caution—a warning?—but the hand didn’t squeeze or shake her. A mild warning, then: Be careful. It made sense. Fear made mistakes, but so did overconfidence. People just needed to be able to think with clear heads.
The atmosphere in the room changed, less weighty and more energetic. Ideas flew back and forth. The men and women at the table leaned forward, one taking the suggestion of another and building on it.
Rey sat back in her chair, amazed and wondering.
* * *
Kylo sat by Rey, the light of her power flowing over him. He sensed the changes in his own power, as if her spark lit a fire in him. He didn’t yet know what to do with it. It was too new, the possibility that he might be able to accept both sides of his nature, the light as well as the dark.
The strategy meeting was winding down, their course forward agreed upon, all familiar routine. What was unfamiliar was being the one in control of the agenda—no longer tasked with carrying out the agenda of another.
With Snoke, he’d learned not to question. To not even think about what he was doing—just put one foot in front of the other, keep moving, get through it until it was done. Shut his mind and heart to everything between the moment he was commanded to the moment the job was finished.
The old rage rose, clotting his throat, banding his chest, sending painful electricity arcing over his muscles. He took his hand from Rey’s knee and shut the bond tight before she could sense it. He quivered with the effort to resist.
He knew what this was. What was triggering these feelings. It was being on a ship like this again. It was being among this sort of people, wearing these uniforms. But everything was different now. He had to remember that. There was no one to force him or torment him or debase him. Everything he did now was by his own choice, for his own reasons.
He breathed, relaxed his muscles. Focusing on Rey’s light beside him, he forced his awareness back to the present, to this room.
Talk had quieted. The officers rose and began to file out, more than one glance falling on Rey. They were curious about her. He knew what they saw—her youth, her watchful silence, her presence by the side of the dreaded Kylo Ren. They’d sense her light the same way they sensed his darkness, even if they couldn’t know what it was they felt.
The Strike Unit Commander, DR-8853, the first one she’d turned, knew what she was, what she’d done. As he stood from the table, he glanced at her with a slight smile and acknowledging nod. Kylo narrowed his eyes. He sensed gratitude and…a certain interest.
Gratitude was understandable, allowable. Rey had pulled the man out of a long nightmare, given him hope. Of course he’d be grateful.
Interest…
No.
Under the table, Kylo clenched a fist on one knee. The commander was a valuable resource. If he had to kill him—
No, no, he couldn’t think like that. That was Snoke’s voice talking, the old whispers goading him into despicable acts. Resist, he told himself. He didn’t have to do those things anymore. He didn’t want to look in Rey’s eyes and see a killer reflected back.
There were other ways of handling the problem. Ways that didn’t include fear and pain and death. He simply had to be clever and think.
Kylo pushed out a breath. He only wished he could call her more than his partner. That would be the simplest—and most satisfying—solution.
He glanced at her, saw she was waiting to talk to him. No doubt she had many, many questions. He nodded his understanding but turned first to the Nightfolk.
“Is there anything else?”
We feed again soon, they said. We are glad.
“I promised you would.”
Brother…
One stepped forward, laid two hands on his arm, an unprecedented intimacy. Another stepped to flank Rey. She glanced over and tensed but kept still.
Bright shines in you now, the Night-one said. Does it give you pain?
He looked at Rey before replying. “No. It gives me strength.”
And us? What do you see now when you look on the Nightfolk?
“I see what I did before,” Kylo said. “My allies. I see a Force-gifted people who can finally take their place in the galaxy.”
The Night-one bowed its head and let its hands fall away.
The one by Rey looked her in the eyes. Do not try to make him what you are, Bright-one.
Kylo could see her considering her response.
“We have an understanding that way,” she finally said. “He doesn’t try to turn me, and I don’t try to turn him.”
Kylo’s breath stopped as if he’d been punched. He thought she still hoped for that. That deep down, she still hoped to find Ben Solo. That meant…
These past days, on the Precursor, it was really him she saw, him she turned toward, him she wanted. Not some hopeful vision of someone he once might’ve been.
He struggled to take it in. Rey and the Night-one locked eyes for a moment more, then at last it stepped back. The four Nightfolk glided from the room.
He looked at her with no idea what to say. His chest felt too tight for words, even if he did have them.
“Did I do something wrong?” she said, suddenly anxious.
“No, Rey. Not at all.” Not at all.
She let out a breath, nodded and fixed him with a serious gaze. “What am I doing here, Kylo?”
He was glad of the chance to regain his balance. “You’re learning.”
“Learning what?”
“Now that you have power,” he said, “your life will be very different.”
“That’s what Verrannallu said, too.”
He wondered in what context the healer had told her that.
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Luke didn’t live all that different from me.”
“Do you want to live like Luke?” he said, his voice amazingly calm.
She thought about it. “No,” she finally said. “It seemed…pointless.”
“Most everything the Jedi did was pointless.”
“It seemed that way to me, too. But the only thing I got to learn is that the Jedi should end.”
There was much to gratify him in those two sentences. “What did you do while you were with Luke?”
Her face darkened. “Mostly followed him around and tried to get him to stop ignoring me when he wasn’t telling me, ‘Go away,’ and ‘I won’t teach you.’”
Kylo didn’t need the bond to know her humiliation and pain at the memory. He was going to kill Luke when he caught up to him. First, he’d grab him by the neck and force him to look at what he’d thrown away.
He pushed down the anger. “If he’d agreed to train you, it would’ve been much the same.”
“You mean I’d just…follow him around?”
He nodded.
She sat back and folded her arms. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It helps to observe. To think about what you see,” he said, then ventured, “Like you’ve been doing today.”
He knew something like this conversation would be coming. He hadn’t quite decided what approach to take—other than a careful one.
He wanted the pleasure of teaching her, helping her reach her potential. But take her as an apprentice? Absolutely not. Become her master? Never.
“Is that what I’m doing now? Following you around?” She wrinkled her nose.
The same dynamics must’ve occurred to her. He had to give her a way to accept. “Now you know how I felt on Laharna.”
She grinned. “So that’s why you were looming. I knew there was something you didn’t like. I just didn’t care what it was.” She studied him. “Okay. Fair enough. I can follow you around.”
Kylo opened the bond enough for her to feel his pleasure. He sat back in his chair. “What did you observe today?”
“They want to do this. They aren’t just afraid of the Nightfolk.”
He nodded.
She frowned. “But I don’t really understand why. Well, I do. I saw how they were living. They’re hardly allowed to…to be human. But all I did was show them a vision.”
“You came to the Supremacy on the strength of a vision.”
“Yes, but that was because I—” She broke off. Color pushed into her cheeks.
She’d told him why in the lift on the way to Snoke’s throne room. “Because you thought you could turn me to the light.”
She got that look of grim determination he often saw. “That’s what I told Luke. It’s even what I told myself.”
Kylo’s heart suddenly beat hard.
“I came because I care about you,” she rushed out.
For the second time in as many minutes, he didn’t know what to say—was afraid of saying too much. The last thing he wanted was to scare her off.
She broke from his gaze. “Anyway, I don’t think that’s the reason for these people.”
He swallowed hard, willing his voice to be steady. “Maybe it is. Maybe they saw a vision of someone they care about.” He hesitated, then decided he couldn’t not say something. “The way I did when you used your power on me.”
She looked up again, her gaze intent on his. Emotions tumbled through the bond: yearning, warmth, uncertainty.
Rey’s hand lay on the table by him. He realized he’d covered it with his, that he’d leaned very close. He stopped himself, ready to draw back when she closed the little distance between them and kissed him.
His brain whited out in shock. There was only the sensation of her lips on his, soft and hesitant, her scent of wind and sunlight, intoxicating.
The warmth of her lips abruptly disappeared and her hand ripped out from under his. He rocked forward and his eyes snapped open—when had he closed them? She stood by the table now, her eyes wide with horror.
“I’m sorry!” she blurted.
“What?” His brain had finally caught up to what happened, his body quickly following and definitely not wanting this sudden distance between them.
“I’m sorry!” she said again. “It’s just—yesterday, when I saw—and I thought—” She put her hands over her face.
“Rey,” he began, reaching for her.
“Oh, no,” she said into her hands. “Oh, no, no!” She spun and bolted for the door.
Kylo shot to his feet. “Rey, wait!”
She made a sound suspiciously like a sob and flung out a hand. The Force wrenched the door open and she was through it and gone.
* * *
Rey ran along the corridor, burning with humiliation. She hadn’t been thinking, and Kylo had been so close, and the way he looked at her, his eyes full of the same feeling she’d seen in his bright dream of the two of them… It had just felt so natural, so perfect—
Oh, what must he think? No, she didn’t have to ask. She’d felt what he thought.
Four stormtroopers wheeled in surprise as she darted past them. She kept running, driven by the thought of Kylo catching up to her. A white-jacketed officer walked ahead. Rey pulled herself down to fast walk, breezing past him as if she had somewhere important to be.
She did. Her quarters. Preferably in that little space behind the bed the hassash had hidden in last night.
“Rey?” the officer called behind her.
She knew the voice—not-Finn. No, she had to stop thinking of him that way. He was Dare, the Strike Unit commander. She turned, hoping she didn’t look like she was struggling not to cry.
His broad, dark face showed concern. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she lied. “Just…getting used to everything.”
It occurred to her it might not even be a lie—she was probably cycle-lagged. The Precursor’s schedule was several hours off Jannessi’s, Jannessi time was different from the Finalizer’s, and the Finalizer had been on a different cycle than Ahch-To. Add in Takodana and Jakku time—oh, right, and Laharna—and it was no wonder she was unsteady and doing stupid things.
Dare nodded. “I’m headed to the officer’s mess. Strategy meetings—whew.” He shook his head. “Would you like to come along?”
He still reminded her of Finn. She remembered when she met Finn, how he’d grabbed her hand and dragged her after him while she spluttered in outrage.
An unexpected smile tugged at her lips. “I never turn down a meal.”
Dare smiled in return and started walking again. “You’re not First Order, are you?”
“No, I’m—” just a scavenger. She swallowed that. “I’m not.”
“We were surprised when Kylo Ren introduced you as his partner. We knew him as the Supreme Leader’s lieutenant before—” He glanced at Rey. “Before all the turmoil at the top. We never heard he worked with anyone else. How long have you been with him?”
She counted backward. Two nights here. Five nights on Jannessi, one on the Silencer, one on the Finalizer. The nights on Ahch-To, when they first started talking—
She blinked. “Not long.”
Yet it seemed like he’d always been a part of her.
“How is he to work with?” Dare said. “He has a reputation.”
“For what?”
Dare paused outside a door. “For being…volatile.”
Rey thought of the vision yesterday, of Kylo reducing a control room to glowing scrap. “Not that I’ve found,” she said.
“I guess you wouldn’t,” Dare said cryptically.
The door whisked open on the sound of voices, a scattering of round tables and a mostly-black sea of officers’ uniforms. She saw the glances, felt their curiosity and slowed, all the old Jakku alertness coming back. She wished for her staff. The officers carried sidearms. Maybe she could get a blaster.
Dare touched her elbow. “Come on. Caf?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Water’s good.” She’d had caf during her brief layover at the Resistance base.
“You’re right. Standard issue caf leaves something to be desired.”
Rey let him guide her to the miracle of a counter of food just sitting there for the taking. She’d halfway expected field rations, but it was real bread, real meat, real vegetables. She watched what Dare put on his plate and made sure not to put more than that on hers.
He glanced at her plate and widened his eyes dramatically. “Strategy meetings take it out of you, too?”
She lifted her chin. “High metabolism.”
Dare didn’t say any more as he led the way to an empty table. Rey felt eyes track her all the way there. She did some glancing of her own as she passed tables to see if First Order people ate the way Resistance people did. It looked like it. No shoveling of food, no licking of plates. She sighed. Eating in her quarters was much easier.
“So, what’s it like?” Dare said. “Working with Kylo Ren.”
She took a disappointingly small bite, made sure she chewed well before swallowing. It gave her time to think, anyway. “Different. Nothing stays the same for long.”
“Sounds like you led a boring life before.”
She shrugged and took another bite.
“Do you like him?”
Rey put down her fork and studied Dare. “Are you worried about him?”
“I told you he has a reputation. You know him better than any of us.”
Something about the conversation made her uneasy. It seemed like Dare was fishing for something, but she didn’t know what.
She weighed the idea, then brushed the surface of his mind. She sensed…interest. Curiosity. It tracked with the questions he’d been asking, but some instinct suddenly urged distance.
“I don’t know about his reputation,” she said. “But if I had a choice between Kylo or Hux, I know which one I’d pick.”
She picked up her plate and stood. “I was on my way to take care of something. I’ll just take this with me. Thanks for showing me around.”
Rey walked out of the room, the prickle of eyes following her all the way.
* * *
Fists clenched, Kylo forced himself to sit down, refusing to allow himself to go after her. Chasing Rey when she was in full flight mode was never a good idea.
He did open the bond to track her. He sensed her painful embarrassment and a powerful distress that went much deeper than that.
He was utterly baffled. What had happened? One moment, she was kissing him, then she was babbling apologies and acting like she’d betrayed his deepest trust. It made no sense.
He sensed for her again, found her calmer now, though still wound through with a thread of unhappiness and discomfort. He found himself on his feet again, his fingers moving over his data pad.
It was an awkward business, correlating his sense of her with an exact location on the ship. Now, he calculated that she was either in Supplies, the kitchens or the officers’ mess.
He pressed his lips tight and strode out into the corridor. Supplies, he thought. He didn’t want to examine why she hadn’t wanted to ask him for what she needed.
Closing in, Kylo turned into the last corridor, reaching for her Force signature.
He stopped. Rey wasn’t in Supplies.
She was in the officers’ mess.
Heat prickled between his shoulder blades, up his neck and over the back of his skull. She’s always hungry, he reminded himself.
So she went there, in the middle of a company of strangers, with the state of mind she was in?
He was breathing hard. Cornering her in the officers’ mess would not be productive on any level. He retreated, pacing back along corridors, ignoring the techs and droids and officers he passed.
He felt her moving again, first in his direction, then away again. He waited a minute more then retraced his steps. He paused outside the door to the officers’ mess to get his breathing under control, then stepped through.
The muted hum of conversation, the rattle of cutlery on plates stuttered and quieted. Every face turned his way. Kylo felt the wave of unease that rippled through the room. His gaze went unerringly to a table near the back, where Strike Unit Commander DR-8853 sat by himself. Though the man remained calm externally, seemingly focused on his meal, Kylo sensed the dread that unfurled through him.
Kylo wound his way toward him. Alarm spiked at each table he passed, but he remained focused on his prey. He stopped, and DR-8853 looked up.
“I’m looking for Rey,” Kylo said bluntly. “Have you seen her?”
DR-8853 quickly got to his feet. “She was just here a minute ago, sir. She said she had something important to do and left again.”
The man didn’t dissemble. Good. Kylo skimmed his mind and found his thoughts full of Rey, her smile, her plate piled with enough food for a stormtrooper twice her size. He clenched his jaw and his fingers twitched in the beginnings of a Force choke. DR-8853 suddenly began coughing hard.
When the commander quieted, Kylo sat and waved him back to his seat. He took it, eyeing Kylo warily.
Kylo considered his course. He decided he could do this without endangering everything they’d accomplished, everything they had yet to accomplish.
He made a point of using the Force to call a cup of caf to his hand from the service counter. DR-8853 boggled.
“More caf?” Kylo asked mildly, gesturing at the commander’s half-empty cup.
“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Kylo sipped. “I’m…” He paused for effect. “…concerned for Rey. This is all new to her. Even this.” He gestured to indicate the ship around them. “She hasn’t been off-planet much.”
DR-8853 didn’t touch his food. “Yes, sir. She did mention that she was getting used to it all.”
Kylo dipped into his thoughts again: Rey’s stricken face. DR-8853’s voice: Are you okay?
“She’s capable of taking care of herself,” Kylo said. “She has for a long time, in more challenging circumstances than this. But I won’t see her put in any unnecessary difficulties.”
The commander was sitting up very straight now. “No, sir. I understand, sir.”
“I knew you would.” Kylo stood, straightening to his full height. “Thank you, DR-8853.”
He nodded and turned, noticing the absolute silence in the room now. No one would bother Rey in the future.
* * *
The bond shivered into existence. Kylo stopped pacing his quarters and turned, relief rushing through him.
Rey had apparently been pacing her quarters, too. She stopped mid-stride but didn’t look at him, her folded arms and stiff back radiating discomfort.
“Go away, Kylo,” she said.
“I can’t go away until the connection ends,” he pointed out.
She turned away. “Stupid bond. Why is the Force doing this?”
He resisted the urge to point out exactly why. “Rey, stop. What’s wrong?”
“Please,” she said, still facing away. “Leave me alone. Just—please.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
She gave a wordless growl. “There you go again—‘tell me.’”
“Rey,” he said. “You can talk to me like this, or I’ll go there.”
She rounded on him, clenching her fists. “Haven’t I made enough of a fool of myself already?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what you felt when I—when I—” She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing hard. “I shocked you,” she finally gritted out. “You were only answering my questions and I— Oh!”
She stomped her foot and put her fists to her face.
His guts churned with her humiliation. His heartbeat ramped up, and he had no doubt it matched hers. He crossed to her, took her wrists and pulled her hands down.
“You think I was offended?” he asked in disbelief.
She stood stiff but didn’t try to break free. “You were offended! I felt it!”
Kylo ran a hand down his face. To share a bond like they did and still have so profound a misunderstanding? Something never to forget.
“I was surprised,” he said.
She turned her face away again. Apparently, that didn’t make it much better in her eyes.
“Rey,” he said firmly. “Stop. Think. Have I given you reason to think I’d find your kiss unwelcome?”
She still wouldn’t look at him, but he felt her calming. She began to fidget a little in his grasp. “No.”
“No,” he agreed.
She managed a peek at his face, up and then down again. “I never kissed anyone before,” she muttered.
Triumph swelled through him. The next instant, he realized the vulnerability she showed in those few words.
“I’m glad it was me,” he said, then, recklessly, “Would you like practice?”
He held his breath as she looked up at him again.
Finally, her lips twitched. “Are you saying I need a teacher?”
He took a step forward. They were only inches apart. “Do you?”
He saw her throat bob in a swallow. “Yes,” she whispered.
He took her face in his hands, smoothing back a strand of hair with his thumb. Her breath sped and her lips parted, her wide eyes on his.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured.
Obligation by Selun-Chen
Her eyelids fluttered closed. He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, as soft and hesitant as her kiss this afternoon. He drew back, kissed her again, just as softly. Her hands slid up his chest to his shoulders. When he drew back once more, she pursued him.
His own hands shifted, one slipping around to thread his fingers into her hair, the other arm encircling her to pull her close. The feel of her slight body pressed against his lit him on fire. He wanted to crush and devour. He leashed the instinct, dragged it back, kept his kisses slow and gentle.
Her scent enveloped him. She whimpered, tangled her fingers in his hair and clutched him, her pleasure and desire unfurling through the bond. Kylo tightened his grip, lifting her to her toes, and freed just a whisper of his need to consume. Rey’s mouth opened to his, and for the first time, he tasted her.
His head spun. His hand moved to her firm bottom, pressed her to the aching heat growing at his groin. Her leg slid up his and she tilted her head back. He delved into her mouth, ravenous, his control slipping fast.
Kylo abruptly found his arms empty. Groping at cold air, he staggered, caught himself, sucked in a furious breath. Everything that wasn’t bolted down rose into the air. The bed and clothes chest shook. In the ‘fresher, the sink and shower rattled threateningly.
He ground his teeth and clenched his fists, exerting all his strength to contain himself. It was like trying to contain a solar flare.
The floating objects blew outward, slammed against the walls. Sparks sprayed. The lights flickered. The sound of breaking glass was drowned out by his shout of raw frustration.
Image credit: Obligation by Selun-Chen
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