Will of the Many~ Poe Dameron

Unraveling...

Sometimes I feel like we're a knot, too tangled to be taken apart...

-Kiera Cass, The Elite

Her hands shook as she lifted them to tuck her silver hair behind her ears. The tips of her fingers trembled mercilessly as they traced the front of her ears to collect the hair. As they dipped around the folds of her ears she watched her ears pull forward in the mirror. When her hair was slicked back and out of her face she dropped her hands and clenched them in tight fists to settle the shaking. All it did was transfer the tremor to her forearms.

The mirror was spotless. It was cleaned meticulously and allowed her to see all parts of her dirty reflection.

Her pale skin had turned nearly translucent. The roadmaps of veins across her temples darkened like hardened highways paving each quick pulse of her erratic heart. The long vein carving a path through the middle of her forehead protruded out angrily. It displayed each rush of blood that alerted all those who say it of her infuriating grief.

Her fiery amber eyes had died down until they resembled cold embers at the bottom of a firepit. No longer did they hold the sun, just the memory of a dying star clinging on for dear life. She knew they would die out at any moment and leave nothing but a void in their wake.

Caressingly lovingly under them were purple bags that hung like bruises. They marked her exhaustion like a gold metal and branded her of her night terrors.

Her reflection was pristine in the mirror, and she was anything but.

Kaydel leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom and looked at her unsettled. "So," she began softly.

Serena's eyes slipped closed as she felt the beginning of another long discussion on the horizon.

"It makes sense, you know." She told her kindly. "It sort of humanizes you, too."

Serena's lip snarled up as she ripped her dry eyes open to stare at herself through the mirror. "I don't want to be humanized," she told her, then immediately regretted the words. Her shoulders sagged as she lowered her gaze to the sink. "Sorry, sorry, it's... been a long night."

"I know." Kaydel pushed off the doorframe to enter the bathroom. She turned to lean against the sink as she looked at Serena's bowed head. "You barely slept last night. All the tossing and turning kept me awake."

Serena flinched at the implication. "I didn't mean to."

"Yeah," Kaydel sighed. "I know. You... had a lot yesterday."

Her brows knitted together as she slowly lifted her gaze to look at her only friend left. "'A lot'?" She quoted her. "Rey told the entire Resistance that I love the very same man responsible for tearing most of their families apart and destroying the galaxy. This entire place sees me as a sympathizer. They won't be able to trust me ever again. I-" She stopped to suck a deep breath in. Her breath stopped short when her ribs dug into the tight hem of her high-waisted pants. She released the shallow breath to try and calm herself. "Poe... he..." she swallowed the forming lump in her throat to keep her voice steady. "He looked at me like he didn't recognize me. He told me that maybe I haven't changed at all-"

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it?" She turned to Kaydel strongly. She looked between her soft eyes and hoped for dear life that they would never change. "I came into this Resistance claiming that I would never kill Kylo Ren, that there are other ways to deal with him when I know damn well that no cell or prison could hold him. I know that the only way to end all of this is to snuff out The First Order completely and yet I can't do it." She lifted a clenched fist to press into her abdomen. "I can't fathom the thought of living in a galaxy where he doesn't exist anymore- no matter what version of him it is- because I-I-" She pressed her fist harder into her stomach until she felt bile raise to her throat. "I have been with him longer than anyone else in the galaxy," she admitted to Kaydel. "I don't know if you've done the math- or if anyone has- but I left my home when I was nine years old to join the Jedi Temple. That is where I met him. From that moment on we were always together, then we fell to the Dark Side together and I was still by his side. I haven't seen my family since I was nine, I didn't have anyone else but him. For so long he was my life. Not having him here, it- it feels-" she lifted her blurry eyes to the ceiling to try and drown out the tears. "It hurts me, Kaydel. Just the thought makes my heart clam up. I want to puke at the thought of him no longer existing. And I know he's bad- I know that, I do-" she stressed as she looked back to Kaydel. "But I have loved him for so long, and that just doesn't go away. I can't just unlove him. That's not how my brain works. I can't do it. No matter what he's done. I-"