The following day, Rey was patiently waiting for Flora and Kai to join her in the forest, where she lay out three old, torn rags to sit on, determined to meditate with them, just as Luke did for their first lesson.
After learning that they are force sensitive, she went over the pages she scribbled on while she had studied with Kylo. Frustratingly, she discovered she must have been too eager to write it all down, seeing now that her writing was a mess.
She sighed, flipping one page over, and saw three words she had wrote very clearly. "One...Force...Me." Is all it said. It confused her as to why those three words were elegantly written in the Jedi texts, the words seeming so random to Rey. She hoped one day, she would be able to figure it out.
Biting the inside of her cheek, she continued to think about the words as she placed the papers down on the dirt, and attempted a handstand, eager to try after seeing Flora do so.
Rey struggled at first, but was very quick to catch her balance, wondering if the spike of anxiety she felt wash away was due to the force taking control. Now, though, fully balanced, she timidly withdrew a hand from the ground, balancing on one. Rey grinned, and heard a distant buzz quiet the air around her.
For a moment, she naively hoped it to be a bug, maybe even a ship landing at the base, but when she lifted her chin to peer up, her view was filled with Kylo Ren's black boots, his cape swirling around them.
Rey gasped and immediately toppled over, cursing at him as dust and dirt flew around her. Rey glared up at him as he studied her.
"Why does this even shock you anymore?" He asked, his hands clasped behind his back.
Rey grunted, still frustrated. "You show up at the most random times. I hate not being in control." She said, and her anger grew as he smirked.
Instinctively, her defense arose as her foot kicked up, trying to jab him in the shin. His heavy boot whirled around her ankle and pinned her leg down to the ground, Rey winced and resisted the urge to cry out, biting her lip.
With her other leg, she swung it behind him, kicking his knee in so he was kneeling on the ground, and she hoped to have higher ground, but even kneeling he was so much bigger than her.
He glared at her, surprised that she even attempted to strike him to begin with, but Rey saw the amusement in his eyes, and unfortunately, was distracted by the look when grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her to him as his other gloved hand went around her throat.
To her shock, he did not grab roughly, or even squeeze. Kylo simply left it there, showing his dominance, letting it be known that he could end her right then if he chose to. A warning.
With wide eyes, she peered up at him, and watched as his now dark and heated gaze flickered to her throat and back up to her eyes, stopping to admire her lip that she was still biting.
With a light shove, he pushed her back and stood above her again, swallowing hard.
Still laying on the ground, Rey regained control of her breath as she leaned back on her elbows, the thought of his hungry , dark eyes still impressed on her mind.
She watched as Kylo looked away from her, readjusting his gloves, and Rey took this time to study him, as he so often did to her.
She watched as his chest heaved with every breath, recalling the time she had seen him without his shirt when the bond connected them. Quickly, she averted her gaze, and right when she was going to let her eyes hit the ground, she noticed his lightsaber gleaming against his hip, nearly hidden beneath his cape.
Again, heat rolled from her head to her toes as Rey felt the maddening realization hit her, and before she could think about what she was doing, she got to her feet and shoved him hard in the middle of his chest. Kylo clenched his teeth as his back hit the wall of his chambers, and to Rey, hitting nothing at all.
His eyes met her cold glare, and Kylo felt his fist ball. How dare this scavenger lay a hand on him after all he has done, he thought. He had the entire Resistance in his hands and he didn't even stri-
"You have my kyber crystal!" she yelled at him.
Infuriated, he straightened himself, ignoring the sharp pain in his back as he stepped closer to her. Rey crossed her arms and lifted her chin in the air, to which Kylo snarled at her. "And that is why you are throwing a tantrum? I will not deny that I have it, and you will not get it back until you show you are capable of handling it!"
Rey's eyes ceased the glare, surprised by his admission. "Well... I did defeat you, severaltimes by my count. I demand it back!"
Kylo watched her, his jaw resetting when he stopped himself from fighting with her. He exhaled sharply, knowing that if he pushed her any further, the dark side of the force could latch on much more easily. Shaking his head, he decided he would not let that happen, not this way. He wanted her to join him, knew in fact, that it would happen in due time. But if she surrendered herself to the dark while still oblivious to the hold it could entrap her in, she would be stuck far more deeper than he, and at that point, could possibly be lost to it forever.
It was true, he is part of the dark side, that is what he agreed to when he went with Snoke, letting the dark side tangle with his very being before it took him over. But even at this, he was no sith lord, and doubted he ever would be. Using nothing but dark force corrupted one's mind, and Kylo wanted full reign of that when is officially named Supreme Leader.
Sighing as he came back to Rey, who was now pacing in front of him, he wondered what he would with the scavenger.
"As I said, you will get it back in due time. Now, however, you must continue your training. Your temper is..." he searched for the right words. "Alarming."
Rey stopped pacing, turning to look at him. "Alarming? You let your temper be ruled by your anger and hatred. Why do you care if I do the same? Only difference is, you use it to fuel the dark side." she asked.
"Anger and hatred is not all it takes. As much as I hate to admit it, scavenger, the most wicked monsters are ruled by nothing but that." He said, his voice almost seemed to struggle with that.
For a moment, Rey thought about this.
She had called him a monster before, and truly believed him to be so at one point.
However, back on Ach-To, she saw a vision that she believed to be more real than that, and when he killed his master, she knew it to be true. She knew he had a bad past growing up, and guessed that he must have had a lot of time without Han or Leia since Snoke was constantly around, so much that he was able to seduce Ben to the dark side so easily.
But now that he was dead, she wondered what else drove him to run with the dark if it was not only anger and hate.
"Well... What else is there?" she timidly asked.
Sighing, he let his gaze fall to the floor as Rey began to pace again, slower this time.
"It's not that black and white. It's not just feelings, it's experiences. It's the pull. You can feel the tug the dark side makes, it's a seductive game it plays. The dark gives you what you want, shows you what you need, projects what you can become. All the desires are there that you didn't even know you wished for." Clearing his throat, Kylo felt a sudden turn in his stomach as he remembered the way the dark side pushed to him the first time.
"You feel the taste of the power, the thrill of undiscovered strengths. Once you get a glimpse of it, it never stops growing, and all the anger and hate you once felt is lost. And you see and feel nothing but simply power."
Rey stopped her pacing, looking to him again, studying the face he was making. He seemed almost hungry, almost desperate for her to understand. Thinking about it now, she remembered the cave on Luke's island as it called to her, and the fight with Sano when the power overtook her. She could feel the pull then, and she could almost taste it now.
Meeting his eyes, she saw he was eagerly waiting for a response. And almost frightened, she asked. "And...That's what you want me to be part of? To be lost to the dark side, enveloped in power that will eat me alive?"
His eyes softened, his tone growing more steadily. "I want you to see your potential, and rise to it, to grasp the power and become something great, something better than the resistance, and something better than your parents."
Feeling the raw truth Ben told, she stared silently at him, unsure of what she could say. There was something deep within her that wanted this, she could feel it rising in her belly and jolting every nerve as they spoke, but Rey was determined to not let Ben see this, and tried her best to build the block up over and over to ensure he would not peer into her mind.
Licking at her lips, Rey tried to make sense of it from her side. "Why kill everyone in the galaxy just to feel a sense of power?"
Kylo stepped closer to her, peering down at her, and for a moment Rey lost her breath. "Why destroy that power just to die with everyone in the galaxy?"
And in the blink of an eye, Kylo faded from her vision as the sound of Porgs chirped around her, Flora and Kai's voices nearing as they walked towards Rey.
Steadying herself, Rey tried to blink her thoughts away and focus on the girls, but one idea stayed with Rey for the remainder of the day.
'If I opened myself up to this power, to the darkside... could I, in turn, save the galaxy?'