The Art of Broken Pieces

Porgs Make New Friends

They wended their way around the edge of the ballroom, nodding at those who acknowledged them, and Rey tried to skim surface thoughts for anything telling. Beyond a few giddy thoughts anticipating the coming message from their local leader, or a particularly rude assessment of one woman's fleshy jowels hanging below her mask, there wasn't much of interest.

"Should we head near the front?" She asked. "If I'm bait, I'll need a good look at the fish."

Ben nodded, tense as he scanned the crowd. It was alien, being anonymous in a place so layered with First Order tokens. Once he would have been comfortable here, but the conversations would not have been so relaxed, so vapid. They would have been laced with fear, fear of him. And he would have thrived on it.

A shiver ran up his spine, the distance that he had traveled since those time yawning at his feet like the vast emptiness of space. Had it really been less than a year since he had sat in the gun well of the Falcon, mind filled with darkness that threatened to drag him back into ingrained habits? He had regretted his choices then, a part of him longing for what he had lost. Now, with Rey at his side, he struggled with the memory. She had changed everything, she had been right all along.

As Rey leaned on him for support, Ben navigated them carefully through the crowd towards the podium where the Chamberlain would make his speeches. Taking up a position near one of the small tables laden with food and drink, Ben cast out his senses, wondering if there were anyone lingering in the crowd who he knew. Surely the First Order had representatives here, hiding among the socialites.

Rey felt the eyes on her, forced herself to look first with the Force. Her senses brushed against a cool presence, and a mind so well guarded she might have thought him a Jedi had the feel of him been different. This man didn't feel like a Force user, rather, his mind felt like a book with a very heavy cover. She eased against it, her mental touch light as she slowly slipped fingers into his surface thoughts.

He was dissecting her with his mind, peeling back the layers of her dress, imagining what he could do with a woman like her.

In his mind, she liked it. She liked him. Her husband didn't do this to her, no. Her husband was watching, his hands displayed flat and trembling on a tabletop. His face would be visible, so that the man could watch every furious twitch of his cheek, every lust-filled gaze at his wife's flush, dripping sex taking in another man's hand-

Rey backpedaled furiously, shrinking hard against Ben's side in shock. "You...said he likes married women?" She said, breathless with revulsion. "I think I found him."

Feeling the waves of disgust boiling from Rey's mind, Ben looped a protective arm around her and drew her closer, both physically and with the Force between them. "When we're done with him, he'll regret ever looking at you." He said softly, deadly promise in his voice.

A clean-suited man with a dark red mask was taking the small stage, hands lifted with silence. Ben watched him darkly, feeling through their connection that this was the man who had bothered Rey so much. He halfway hoped the man wouldn't give them the information they wanted easily, would resist, would give Ben an excuse to take his mind apart piece by piece.

"Friends!" Octavius' voice boomed out across the wide space as voices hushed and masked faces turned to look at him. "I thank you all for attending, it is your presence and your commitment that offers our dear friends hope of regaining their rightful position." Polite applause followed his words, and he basked in it for a moment before gesturing once again for silence.

"I have a gift for you this evening, a surprise that will shock you all." He paused for dramatic effect, waiting until curious whispers had begun to build. "I have glorious news! Our Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren is alive!"