Little Bird (Kylo Ren x Reader AU)

Raising the Dead

Beds of clovers blanketed the abandoned parking lot, pavement cracking and parting to the encroaching wilderness beyond, green valleys drowned in the sheets of rain. The Audi whirred in frustration, then stopped, wheels sloshing the muddied ground. Kylo Ren exited and stepped into the downpour without an umbrella--or really anything else that might protect him from getting absolutely soaked--while you readjusted your bonnet and flipped up the hood on the coat he'd given you.

By the time you'd managed to clamber out of the car, he'd already started down a grass-eaten pathway, long strides cutting a straight line off the winding concrete walk. You scampered to catch up with him, water pelting your face and splashing your boots--you called after him, but he either failed to hear you, or simply didn't care.

As he crossed into the cemetery proper, you passed entire yards decorated with forgotten graves--in the ground, you imagined the skeletons, filthy with dirt, nameless and faceless and truly dead, their identities known only to memories razed by the ravages of time. Tall oaks and maples stretched into the sky, their trunks smothered with overgrowth, some of them swallowed to the branches. Within them, you spied evidence of life--stick nests, a family of ravens sheltered from the storm under ceilings of vines. And then, further into the cemetery, a bird strangled in a mass of these same vines, wings quartered and neck snapped.

You followed him into a clearing, plumes of wildflowers burgeoning through a white brick path that meandered to a marble slab only slightly shorter than Kylo himself. At each side of the slab, a raised black granite tomb, plantlife weaving to obscure the ledgers. Beyond that, a grass ocean billowed into a valley, rolling to the edge of a forest, all of it waving in the storm winds. Lightning bleached the sky, and you squealed, folding your arms over your chest.

Kylo stopped before the feet of the tombs, staring. Rivers raced ridges into his hair and over his cheeks, dripped down his long nose, his eyes pooled with vacancy, clear and empty and absent of anything you had the ability to name.

"You wanted to know what made me," he said. "Ask the right questions. I'll tell you." Thunder groaned, miles away.

"Okay," you said, squinting at him. "Where are we?"

He exhaled through his nose. "My parents' graves."

A curtain of rain swept the air, and you glanced between him and the graves before crossing to the slab, tearing through the slippery leaves. The stems were coiled tight around one another, but a sharp tug, and they ripped to the side, revealing the engraved dedication in large, block letters.

Organa.

Frowning, you glanced at him for a moment; he stood, still blank, failing to offer even the slightest acknowledgement of your presence. You sighed. The name Organa was familiar, but you'd only ever known it in connection with a late senator. To your surprise, as you tugged more, you saw her name: Leia Organa. One of the tombs belonged to her--and listed underneath her, the owner of the other tomb: Han Solo.

Breath evaporated, the pieces colliding like atoms, sparking light. You blinked, tracing the names with your fingertips as water creeked through the indentation. All he had said was what made me. But to know him--this mystery, in some moments more monster than man, and in others more hallowed than human--saddled you with more confusion than ever. This was a non-answer, a presentation in lieu of conversation.

You turned, brow raised. "I don't understand."

"You don't."

"Why did you take me here?"

His jaw tensed. "They are," he said, voice stark in the storm, "what made me."

More lightning, and you jumped, cursing yourself internally. You couldn't reconcile the restrained, adjusted grandeur displayed at this gravesite with the person at its border. You knew enough about politics before Gilead to understand that a senator's son was someone ostensibly raised in a home of democracy. Yet this man was one forged in war.