She'd expected the masquerade to be even more ostentatious than Madam Concierge's dinner—after all, it had cost so many credits just to secure an invite, she was fairly certain they could have covered the room in a centimeter-thick patina of gold and still had plenty left over for the charitable cause.
Instead, they rode up to a sedate gray building of massive columns, which looked like something made to house important documents of state, not host several hundred people in glittering, masked costume.
After the brief touches they'd shared on that hillside, Rey had almost expected last night to unfold into something that rolled quickly downhill and straight into bed. Part of her had hoped it would, but the rest of her felt too protective of the cautious new trust to make any sudden moves. Like a wild animal, just learning its feeders meant no harm, it felt like the feelings were still too wary to withstand a full physical encounter.
And despite what the hedonistic part of her said, she didn't think she'd be satisfied with just a chaste kiss. His nose against her ear had made her feel weak, the warmth of his breath puffing wet against her neck had made her skin tighten all over like one of their designer's strange suits.
But Ben had kept his mouth frustratingly to himself on the speeder ride home, and save for the light tangle of their fingertips, they hadn't touched. RD's immediate assault upon entering had broken whatever lingering mood remained. Ben went to make arrangements for transport and, more secretly, their escape route. Rey, on the other hand, had to work with RD to fashion some way to smuggle her blaster in beneath her dress.
Both her and Ben's lightsabers remained aboard the Falcon—too much a giveaway of their identity, should Aurelia's ample supply of wandering hands slide somewhere unwelcome. She missed its weight at her side, wishing there were some way she could have disguised it. But her blaster was good enough.
Or it would have been, if there had been an inch of spare fabric to hide it in. In the end, she'd had to strap the thing low on her one concealed calf and hope no one noticed its presence.
Their invitation was thoroughly scanned at the doors, and Ben had the impression that no one who was not vetted several times over was allowed to attend the event. Thankfully whatever scrutiny they had been subjected to, their carefully crafted identities had held up well and within a few moments they were ushered through the tall double doors.
The building was clearly an event hall, not a private residence, and the tall banners hung from the ceiling shocked him into immobility. Once inside, there was no attempt made to mask the purpose of the event, as the draped tapestry was boldly emblazoned with the red and black emblems of the First Order. He felt Rey stiffen at his side and his fingers tightened over her hand. Leaning down to her ear he whispered, "Well at least we know we're in the right place..."
The masked guests mingled and talked, voices low in the echoing space. The sense of entitled revelry that had permeated the dinner at Madam Congierge's estate was missing here, despite the pageantry of masks and costumes which surrounded them. All faces were concealed, voices muffled through the heavy masks. Ben's own was simple in design, a simple face plate of fractured mirrors. The irony was not lost on him, as he was sure the reflection now cast back the First Order decor that surrounded them.
Rey strengthened her hold on Ben's arm, feeling suddenly on edge. She'd walked into the viper's nest before, once even with Ben at her side, but it had never been a comfortable thing. None of the people before her were uniformed, and she didn't think many of them were armed, but those long red banners still sent a chill down her spine.
She peered around, though it was pointless to try spotting anyone in the crowd. She didn't know anyone's masks or costumes—even the white and gold of her own mask would have been as unrecognizable as it was heavy. She'd almost forgotten what it looked like before it had arrived that evening, in a silver box tied by charcoal ribbon onto an even larger silver box containing her dress. Shoes had come along with the garments, and of course they were heels. Towering ones made of silk ribbon and gold filigree that felt like they would melt if she splashed them with water. They put her only a few inches lower than Ben—it was a strange and unsteady world, so high up.
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!"
Rey went completely still. In the space of a second, her mind flew apart in a thousand directions, pursuing a thousand questions and a thousand possibilities and a thousand answers. Had this all been a setup? Was Ben in on it? If not, were they about to be descended upon and revealed?
She dismissed the idea that Ben had been part of it—she'd been too closely connected with him over the past few days. She would have sensed something. The equal wave of shock rippling from his side of the connection was all the confirmation she needed that her instinct on that was right. She planted her feet, prepared to duck for her blaster and spring into action, lightsaber or no lightsaber, death-shoes or no death-shoes.
But no spotlight was swinging down to find them, and the crowd was not sucking back from them like a retreating tide. Hands were lifting to masked mouths, glittering faces turning in ecstatic shock toward a hologram sparkling from the center of a large, gem-studded projector of a chandelier.
A hologram of a familiar dark mask, chased with lines of silver.
Ben stared at his own face, or rather at the mask that he had discarded long before. Even before he had taken over the title of Supreme Leader. He was frozen, caught between horror and bursting into laughter at the parody.
"He regrets he cannot be with us this evening!" The Chamberlain continued as the crowd rippled with quiet conversation. "He must remain in hiding, protected from the pretenders that call themselves our new Alliance. But he has recorded this message for you, to lift your spirits!"
The figure in the hologram turned slowly, the dark mask gazing out over the crowd and reminding Ben painfully of the days when Snoke had cast a similar shadow, looming over him with malice and dark attraction.
When the hologram spoke, it almost startled Ben not to hear his own voice, captured somehow to become an impostor's plaything. But it was definitely the voice of another, of some actor straining to pitch his words below his range.
"Companions of the First Order. Loyal servants, the might of the First Order will not fall to the insignificant attacks of the weak and repugnant rebel scum that call themselves our rulers! Though we suffered a monumental loss on Karrakesh, we will rise again, indomitable, victorious! The obstreperous remnants of filth in our galaxy will be cleansed, and though I cannot share with you the salubrious air of beautiful Aurelia, I thank you all for your glorious contribution to our resurrection!"
Ben could barely follow the words, his initial shock fading into a mix of amusement and anger. The voice was unfamiliar, but the words.... the words could only belong to one man.
"That pretentious, arrogant, slimy little shit." He growled under his breath.
What had begun with something like fascinating horror quickly dissolved into a thin, unrestrained wheeze of a laugh. Rey turned, burying her mask in Ben's shoulder as the false voice continued on in the most un-Ben-like (and un-Ren-like) language she could possibly have imagined. Ben's growl of utter offended frustration only made it worse. She caught only a few more words, like "bellicose" and "egregious" and "moribund" before she dissolved into helpless sobs of laughter.
Hux. It had to be. No one else sounded quite so smarmy. Finn's impression of the man had included enough of what Poe called "thousand-credit adjectives" to make her almost certain the speech could have been written by no one else. And if that was true, there was absolutely no way Ben was going to let it go.
Beside them, a man passed Ben a black handkerchief for his clearly "overcome" wife.
Taking the handkerchief with false gratitude, Ben patted Rey's shaking shoulders in mock comfort. "I thought he'd died at Karrakesh." He hissed softly to Rey, hand fisting around the small dark cloth. "I left him badly wounded before the assault, I assumed your people had finished the job."
The speech was coming to a close, and as the hologram faded, the crowd burst into thunderous applause.
"Now please, dance, enjoy the evening!" Chamberlain Octavius' voice echoed over the noise, and music began to drift through the room.
Sweeping a drink off the table next to them, Ben tilted his mask up enough to toss it back, feeling the slow burn of strong alcohol. "At least I can kill him again."
"Sure, if he's here," she said, coughing out a final laugh. "I won't even stop you."
Rey dabbed at her streaming eyes below the mask, feeling much better about the evening already. The grumpier Ben got, the funnier the memory of the speech became. She snagged a drink as well, though something of a lighter, bubblier order than what Ben had selected. The speech had, indeed, buoyed her confidence. Just not in the way Chamberlain Octavius and General Hux had likely intended. Sipping her drink, she scanned the room for that dark red mask, and found the Chamberlain standing with another man whose bearing screamed "military".
She slid in close to Ben, running a hand up his arm to get his attention. With a tug of his hand, she pulled his arm around her, glad when he obediently—or was it possessively—pulled her in against him. This close, it should have been easy to lean in and whisper, but the damn folded fan at the edge of her mask clacked against his mirrored face.
"I'm going scavenging," she said. "Have fun hunting, but don't leave me alone in a room with that man for long. I will probably end up breaking enough teeth that he'll have to drink his meals through a straw."
"Please do." Ben replied darkly.
It was hard to let her go, knowing what she was walking into. Fierce protectiveness made him want to walk with her every step, to guard her from the predators of this ridiculous world. But if there was one thing he had learned about Rey, it was how capable she was of protecting herself.
Ben drifted slowly towards the edges of the crowd, observing but not engaging as several couples began to move out onto the dance floor. He found an alcove near one frosted window and folded himself down onto the window seat, a new drink in hand. Letting his senses wonder, he brushed against Rey's mind, feeling her determination.
I'm with you. He reminded her gently.
Rey took the words like an offered hand, holding him in her head like a talisman against everything that could go wrong. She was getting better at walking in the stupid shoes, though a bit of Force-assisted balance was there to help her navigate the slick dance floor. She wound her way past people in glittering shades of red and blue and copper. No one seemed to be wearing green or other earthier tones. It was all jewel and precious metal. Rey certainly wasn't the only one in gold.
She stretched out her feelings, finding the edge of that cool mind, and made her way toward it until—there. His back was to her, and he seemed to be speaking with a couple in all black. Rey braced herself. She'd tossed herself into the jaws of the rancor before. And this one didn't even have the Force.
Swiping two drinks from a passing attendant, she made her way to the edge of his vision and waited, pretending politeness and shyness she didn't feel, for him to acknowledge her.
Ben let his senses hover near her watchfully, only paying enough attention to his own surroundings to make the requisite nods and passing greetings as other guests wondered by.
Chamberlain Octavius let Rey wait for a moment, before turning slowly to face her. He was a rather tall man, only a few inches shorter than Ben. Broad shouldered and fit, he was still developing the slight paunch of an older man. "Good evening, Mistress." He said smoothly, the eyes behind his dark mask raking down her body and finally settling a bit south of her face. "Please tell me a lovely woman such as yourself is not attending the party alone?"
Rey extended the drink to him, making the slight bobbing curtsey-thing she'd seen the other women do. "No, I'm here with my husband," she said. Then, on a spark of inspiration, "He's somewhere, talking with people more important than I am. I thought I should try the same thing."
He laughed genially, taking the drink from her and letting his fingers rest a little too long over her own. "And how are you enjoying the evening so far, Mistress....?"
"Tahn," she supplied. Dropping her gaze, she scanned for weapons on him, hoping the gesture looked demure. He seemed to be carrying a blaster, but there was something weighing down his sleeve. A vibroblade? A wrist-blaster? No, that seemed too dainty a weapon for this man. Why was the Dark Side so blasted tall?
"I enjoyed the Supreme Leader's speech very much. I'm afraid I was overcome." Well, it wasn't a lie.
"It is comforting to know he has not abandoned us."
You're right, Rey thought. He's here with you now. Just not in the way you think. He'll never abandon you. Not until every trace of you is gone.
"It is indeed," she said.
Octavius nodded, eyes wandering shamelessly. "Tell me, Mistress Tahn, does your husband often desert you like this? Surely you would feel more comfortable accompanied, especially as you are so new to our world."
Rey tensed, shooting her gaze back up to him in surprise.
He winked at her. "I recognize your name, of course. You have been quite the talk of the town, a lovely flower still coming to bloom." Pretentious charm oozed through his words.
She let the uncomfortable laugh trickle out. "He is usually more attentive," she said. "I believe the prospect of the evening's proceedings has excited him. He seems to think there may even be First Order officers in attendance and is absolutely beside himself with the desire to thank them for their serv-" she covered the mouth piece of her mask, feigning a blush. "Am I speaking to an officer now?"
"Oh goodness no!" Octavius laughed, setting his drink aside and moving closer to her to speak more intimately. Rey set her drink aside as well, feigning utter interest. "I am nothing but a friend of the Order, doing my best to aid them in their recovery."
He slid a hand slowly down her forearm to her wrist, taking her hand in his and kissing the back of it softly. "Would you like to dance, Ms. Tahn? Has he even taken the time to teach you the moves?"
She shuddered at the touch, and the slight contact with her mind told her he wouldn't have cared if it was a happy shiver or not. She glanced sideways. Sana was used to looking to her husband for cues. This would confuse her. "I... wasn't going to dance," she said. "We've been...otherwise diverted. I don't know the steps very well."
As she said it, she leaned forward a bit, as if grateful for the contact of a man to show her what to do. How to behave. Someone to protect her in her husband's absence. Sana was that sort of creature, determinedly small, seeking the validation of inspiring protectiveness. She would like big men, and powerful ones. She would be attracted to anyone big enough to bully people away from her. She wouldn't have enough guile to enjoy pitting men's affections against each other—no. She just wanted to be coddled and petted and protected at all times.
Rey wobbled a bit on her heels and set her free hand on the Chamberlain's arm. "I'm not sure my husband would approve. Is it done? Dancing with someone who you aren't married to?"
"Dancing can be enjoyed by all." He assured her, patting her hand and covering it with his own as he led her out onto the floor. "Surely he won't mind if you learn a few things in his absence. You can surprise him with it later."
Not all certain he was comfortable leaving Rey alone with the man, no matter how well she was handling it, Ben retreated deeper into the alcove he had settled into and let himself fully Visit, falling into step behind Rey as the man turned her to face him and rested his hands on her hips. His view of the ballroom around her faded into the familiar emptiness that always surrounded them when they Visited, and Ben moved up behind her and leaned down to speak into her ear.
"No matter what his opinion of you, we can't exactly have you stabbing him with those shoes, can we." He slid his hands down her arms and over her hands, pressing against her back as he carefully guided her through the first few steps.
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(Authors' Notes)
Hux-speak... it's really it's own beautiful language, amirite?