Force Destiny

Execution

Kylo marched rigidly past the rows of stormtroopers who stood at attention in deference to him. It was unnerving, sensing all the eyes watching him, judging him. Did they notice the tremor in his knees? The quickness of his breath? Were his shoulders too hunched? Were his robes disorderly in his haste to leave his quarters? Did his gait exude power... or fear?

You're just a child in a mask... echoed mockingly in his head.

He coiled the energy tightly around himself, so he wouldn't be tempted to reach out and hear the thousands of thoughts polluting the Force at once. He knew what they were thinking about him. He knew they found him wanting. No matter what side he sacrificed for, he was never strong enough. They could see all his weaknesses; he knew they could. Kylo reminded himself that he had faced Luke Skywalker and survived; he could do this. He could do anything.

His general was standing beside the prisoners, who had been thrown to their knees in preparation for the execution. Kylo swallowed thickly under the weight of the emotions colliding inside him like a thunderstorm. His lightsaber hilt burned his back with intention; the Force was heavy with anticipation. The prisoners bowed their heads in resignation. His boots swiftly drew him nearer, though everything inside him was screaming to run away. It's not too late, the Force suggested in moments of weakness, this could be the choice that changes it all. He shut the light out as best he could, refusing to listen to its lies.

His reluctant steps reminded him of those he'd taken a long time ago, at a burning temple. The splash of boots through muddy puddles in his memories were just as ominous as the echoes across the onyx floor of the hangar. The prisoners did not look up as he approached, but they undoubtedly noticed his boots as he stood before them – the harbinger of death. If Hux obtained the right information, Kylo would be on his knees in front of the Order facing an identical deliverance as those prisoners. He imagined it then – kneeling beside them. It was less agonizing imagining himself facing his own fate than being the executor of theirs. When the time came, Hux would undoubtedly ask him for his last words, but Kylo would never provide him the satisfaction of a single sound.

The prisoners were not begging him for amnesty, either. He respected that. They likely understood it was an exercise in futility – the disciplinary methods of the First Order were well-known – and they decided to preserve what dignity they had left. As Hux spouted his propaganda to the troops, Kylo finally let his eyes study the prisoners whose lives he would end with his weapon. Unlike what he had done in his own moments of reckoning, when he had fought monsters and the Force to control his own destiny, they each refused to stare in the face of death. Perhaps that was why he was still breathing. They wouldn't be so lucky.

There were three; a large human male, a Duros male, and a human female. Her head was bowed so all he could see was her shoulder-length brown hair, and though Kylo had only seen Rey's hair down in the hut and in the throne room, he remembered the soft waves and the way it bounced when she moved. As this woman before him turned her head to the side to look at another prisoner, her chestnut waves bounced around her shoulders, and his breath caught in his throat. The similarities she shared with Rey were undeniable... and unnerving.

Slim framed, muscular, tall, skin tanned from the sun – it could have been her. Logically, he knew it wasn't. He would have felt her the second she was in the same system as the Finalizer. That knowledge didn't deter the nausea rising to his throat, however, because it easily could have been her. And if it had been her, he would have been forced to do the same to her. Ben! He forced the thought of Rey on her knees in the throne room – eyes pleading with him to save her – from his mind.