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(no subject)

Characters: Kylo Ren and open
Date: August
Location: Keeliai
Situation: Catch-all post
Warnings/Rating: (mild?) violence

#1: early August

If you happened to visit Kylo Ren in the first days of August, you would find him packing up the few belongings he had gathered during his stay on Tu Vishan, or if you were very lucky, you might even witness the movers he had hired to have him disappear from Sky Sector with as little fuss as possible.

With Phasma gone, the house in the Sky Sector had become a location far too well-known for his comfort, and if a change of scenery would conceal Phasma's disappearance for a while, all the better. Inhabitants of the Fire Sector would run into him an awful lot there all of a sudden, and indeed he had gotten an apartment near the industrial sector.

#2: August

Too bad his new solitude didn't work out too well. Or rather, didn't last too long. All of a sudden Kylo Ren could be seen in the company of several Kin'nal, and looking none too happy about his new friends. So much for him and Hux talking of the need for humanitarian aid, such things always come back to haunt you... sometimes quite literally, by moving in with you.

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Raine did not flinch, though her hands flexed like she was thinking about doing something with them. She tracked the bedside table until it settled, upended, and then she turned a dispassionate gaze back on Kylo Ren.

This might, she knew, be a terrible idea; but she did after all have a failsafe, and the point needed to be made, and she judged that it needed to be made more thoroughly than she had already said in order for it to stick.

"All that I have witnessed says it makes you a destroyer of property and people," Raine said, tone cool. "Your 'restraint' consists of harming objects instead of people, and evidently you cannot even reliably do that. You are in theory a man grown, but given power you act like a petulant child. The strongest person I know could afford the compassion to give his worst enemy a second chance; by comparison, you are weak, unable even to recognize when someone else is controlling you."

All that much further and she'd start to sound like a Grand Cardinal, Raine reflected distantly, but she kept the grimace mental and her face impassive.

He was seething, just utterly seething. Sometimes he had been able to go for days pretending that he was almost normal, but then the restraint had eaten at him all the harder. For months, and months...

But he had tried.

Raine's cold, unimpressed voice cut through all his protective layers, right to that core where only his Master could touch him anymore these days. The same scorn, the same accusations, too weak...

...his father, speaking of Snoke controlling him, knowing it is true, but it's too late...

"I'm not weak!" Kylo howled as he threw himself from the bed right at her, driven by some vague unformed idea of attack. He wasn't even holding his lightsaber this time, but he just, "stop it, I'm not a puppet!"

There was the snap Raine had been expecting. As soon as motion registered she pushed herself backward, off the bed to a solid stance on the floor, and her hands came up in front of her, palms out as though to ward him off. "Force field," she said, like it was an order, and abruptly she was not attempting to stop Kylo's progress with hands alone, but with a green bubble of surprising solidity despite its flimsy appearance.

According to previous calculation, it should absorb about eighty percent of his momentum. The rest she would deal with if and when he made contact.

While Kylo had had some vague awareness that Raine's powers went beyond healing he had never given these powers much thought. They weren't of interest to him, since they couldn't possibly be stronger than the Force.

He gave a surprised snarl when his body hit the green shield. It had some give, but since he didn't have a lot of momentum it held him off quite effectively, sheer surprise doing the rest to have him rearing back.

"What's that?" he snapped, eyes narrowed at Raine as if she had personally offended him.

The shield vanished as quickly as it had come, and Raine frowned right back at Kylo. "It's a shield," she said. It hadn't been the query she expected. "A simple self-defense technique. It varies slightly from person to person."

Judging that he likely wasn't about to fling himself at her again, she crossed her arms. His greater height was much more noticeable this way, but Raine refused to show any sign of intimidation. "You're still healing," she said, disapproving. "My apologies; I felt it necessary to make a point."

She tilted her chin up, the better to meet his gaze, and went on as though it were just another lesson. "It took a minute, perhaps two, for me to provoke you into doing something that by your own words you ordinarily wouldn't."

His throat kept working as he forced himself to sink back into the pillows and lay still. Tried to recall these old meditation teachers he had learned in his Uncle's Praxeum in another life, to center himself when he was raging, to release his anger into the Force.

But too much in him held on to it, too frightened of releasing what he had been taught was the source of his power. Even if it was only blinding him right now.

Kylo snorted bitterly. "You've made your point thoroughly, Master." There was a sneer to that for the first time, a hint of bitterness. He looked stubbornly down at the blankets. "You've showed you can make a fool of me. Congratulations. You wouldn't be the first one."

Master again; she was no-one's master. "How many times must I--" Raine started, and cut herself off mid-snap, breathing long and deep. Now was not the time, no matter how many levels the title bothered her on. She flexed her fingers again, and leaned her hip on the edge of the bed, her demeanour cooling again as she looked, really looked at her student.

"Do you honestly believe I would set out purely to humiliate you, especially while you're injured?" she wondered aloud. She was frowning; but this time it was more troubled than disapproving. She didn't know if it was worse reflection on her, or the teacher who had had him before. "My point, Kylo, is that your... difficulties... with anger will likely be used against you someday, by someone genuinely skilled at manipulating people. It's my responsibility as your teacher to ensure you're aware of your weaknesses, so that you can account for and fix them. I simply wanted to see if you had the control you believed you did, and you have my apologies for the method."

Perhaps she should have been more patient, but he had not seemed receptive to the idea of anger management at first.

Raine sighed then, and shook her head. "It isn't a sin, to be weak," she said, more softly. "But this issue will hinder your potential, and there's a risk that you may hurt someone you care for again. Frankly, I'm surprised your previous teacher didn't address this better with you." A dark suspicion was stirring about that, which Raine mentally examined and let sit for the moment. In any case, it wouldn't do her any good to attempt to shake Kylo's trust in that teacher now.

Edited 2016-09-15 06:30 (UTC)

"Because he understood that my anger is the source of my strength," he insisted, though there was an edge of being defeated to his voice. She was getting to him in so many ways, but pride and determination were making him unwilling to budge. At least not outwardly.

But it was hard, especially when Raine was wording it like this - not pointing out the flaws she saw in him, but speaking of making him stronger and better. Wasn't that what a teacher should do?

"He has fed my rage," he said stubbornly, "the Supreme Leader sees strength in it." His face tightened. "He taught me to cut off all the pieces of myself that have no place on the Dark Side... it's my own fault for not being good enough. I should have proven myself worthy of him already. But anger didn't help me, and neither did ridding myself of my past. I'm still weak." He looked up, frowning at Raine. "I'm angriest when I'm angry with myself and my own weakness... when I realize that I can never live up to Darth Vader's legacy, or be worthy of being Snoke's apprentice. I can't soften, I will let the Light Side in again, and then I'll be too weak to do what needs to be done when I get home."

"Is it?" Raine asked levelly. Thus far, his anger appeared to be the source of his weakness.

But he was already having a difficult enough time with the idea that anger might not be a good thing to rely on over-much. Raine opted to address slightly different issues.

"It isn't your fault," she said, matter-of-fact, like there wasn't any room for there to be a question about it. "If a student is putting in the effort, it's the teacher's responsibility to meet them half-way; it isn't a unilateral relationship. Not to mention that being angry with yourself is counter-productive if you plan to use it for power: all that will do is direct your power at yourself, and you don't deserve your hatred." Raine tilted her head a little, as though the different angle would reveal something new. "Why do you need so badly to be strong, Kylo? What do you want power for?"

It had been a very, very long time since he felt so much like a child as he did in this moment. And yet it wasn't a bad feeling, not as such. The kindness Raine treated him with might have been terrifying in so many ways, and yet he felt comforted by it. Calmed, even. Safe, in a way he didn't wish to think about.

You don't deserve your hatred. Nobody had ever told him that, certainly not Snoke who built him up and tore him down.

"I have to live up to my grandfather," he offered tentatively. Whatever bravado had been to his voice had disappeared along with the anger. "Darth Vader was the greatest Sith ever, in the end he defeated even the great Darth Sidious. I should be his heir, Snoke says I could be greater than Vader if I purify myself. His strength runs in my blood. But no matter how hard I try, I can't... I don't have his strength and dedication." He sighed, looking down at the blankets morosely. "I inherited his raw power, but also his weakness. Darth Vader defeated Darth Sidious, but he died to save his son. Compassion killed him."

"What parent wouldn't?" Raine returned, with a little shrug. "It's better to survive for your childrens' sakes, naturally, but sometimes that option simply doesn't exist. Better then to do what you can to ensure the future." This was getting more personal than she had initially intended-- she knew too many good friends who had lost family in that way, and there was her own family, as well. The pain of those losses would never be enjoyable, but because of them she and hers were here, and now, and so she could not entirely regret them.

Raine sighed quietly. She could understand why compassion was seen as weakness, but the willingness to extend it despite vulnerability was nothing but strength, in truth. Still, that was an ideological difference she did not expect to win. Not now, at the least. "If you must live up to your grandfather, I suspect taking him by pieces does him a disservice. Your greatest Sith was also someone who had the determination to ensure his son survived, no matter the cost. That's not such a terrible thing."

What parent wouldn't?

He felt the phantom touch of his father's hand on his cheek again, and the look of love in his eyes that had never faltered even as the life seeped out of him.

"Maybe... I never thought of it like that." He fiddled with the blankets. "He chose what he wanted, and he was willing to pay even the highest price to attain it." He gulped. "I thought I had made the highest sacrifice, but I didn't feel stronger for it. It weakened me." And he'd since had to live with the knowledge that this sacrifice had been for naught.

"Do you have anything for which you would make such a sacrifice?"

The highest sacrifice. Raine wasn't sure she wanted to know what he meant; but she had enough misgivings about Kylo Ren that she rather thought she would need to know, sooner or later.

"Sacrifices," she began levelly, "are rarely for one's own benefit." But she was considering his question, and in a moment she inclined her head, agreeing.

"I believe I've mentioned my younger brother to you. I raised him, after..." No. No, Virginia wouldn't come into this. "I raised him from infancy," Raine amended. "In many respects, I suppose I'm a mother to him, after all. If it was necessary, yes, I would give up my life for his, without another thought." There were others-- but all more complex in terms of the qualifications. Raine left it at Genis for now. "I could be satisfied, knowing my brother would be safe."

He shifted, discomfitted by the answer though he now realized he should have expected it. Nothing he had learned about Raine had indicated differently, all that had been missing was the identity of the one she would sacrifice herself for.

Kylo looked away again, it was too hard to bear her gaze. She wasn't even judging, yet he felt judged. If she knew... "Then you're a better person than I am," he pointed out, though he found it unnecessary, "and your brother is very fortunate. To have a parent who loves you more than they love themselves..." His jaw clenched. No. He couldn't do it. He couldn't face that. Not now. More like never.

He just smiled wanly, and huddled back under the covers. "I've never doubted you would choose the path of good, Raine."

Raine was neither blind nor willfully ignorant, and there were only so many things it could mean, when her student refused to meet her eyes. Whatever he was hiding from her was something he was not proud of, and coupled with the topic at hand...

What had he done?

And, more importantly: did it matter, since this was another world? She had extended second chances to any number of people in this city. What would matter most was what he did now. "One of my students changed the shape of our world," Raine said, electing to come at the topic a little sideways. "For the better. He's an idealist, naturally. He truly believes in the good nature of people, and their capacity to be better. He would have forgiven our worst enemy, I think, if Mithos had made the effort to change. For myself..." She shook her head. "Not everyone will change. Not everyone can. But without the chance to, it's impossible to tell the difference."

Raine sighed again, and got up, absently brushing the line of her jacket straight. "Keeliai is that chance for many people," she said levelly. "Without the pressures of their world, without the people they leave behind-- many of my friends have grown beyond what their worlds would allow. My husband did. The man who may as well be my second brother is. I know there are things you aren't telling me, Kylo. Things I certainly won't like. But there's no need to assume your path is set in stone because of them. You have a chance, and a choice. Don't waste either." That was about all she needed to say. Raine nodded to herself, half-turned as though she meant to go. "I'll see you later this week for lessons, when you're feeling better."

There were many things he could have said in response - angry and bitter things meant to lash out, to wound her, or simply push her away. But for today he felt so tired of fighting everything and everyone, and there was this tiny little light of hope he felt oddly reluctant to quash.

So he just nodded, once again avoiding her gaze, though he was keenly aware of her turning away, and honestly, glad for the opportunity to mull over what she had told him. "Thank you."

He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to thank her for, which kindnesses and offers issued he was ready to acknowledge just yet, but he knew he felt more at peace with himself for having Raine in his life.

Second chances.

He'd been promised them before, and thought it was too late. It was, he still believed that, but maybe, here... Maybe there could be some peace, for a little while.

Still avoiding her gaze. Raine didn't quite sigh, though it was tempting.

Well, for now Raine had done what she could. She inclined her head to him in turn. "Feel free to come to me if you have any questions," she added, almost as an afterthought. Evidently he needed to think, and while it would be up to Kylo if he wanted to reach out, she would certainly be there if he did. "In the mean time, rest. Until then."

And with that she was gone, satisfied that no more abrupt murder attempts had been made and that she'd done what she could for now. This would certainly not be the last time they talked about this.

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