She couldn't stop seeing his eyes. It was all she could grasp in the darkness of the trees and in the unsteady shaking of both the planet and her mind. She kept seeing his eyes. They were darkened with rage, with confusion. But she knew them. She had looked into them so closely in her youth, she had grown up looking at them. At him. What had happened to the boy she knew?
Cyra didn't know where she expected to wake up. She hadn't expected to blackout in the first place. She barely recognized his eyes before her body fell unconscious.
She knew she had been saved by the woman who fought him. How long it had been since that night, she knew not. The first move she made when she opened her eyes was to think to Leia, reach for her in the Force, and she knew the woman would find her.
Leia took no time to respond. She could not have been far from her, as the knock at Cyra's door was mere minutes after she reached out.
As Leia closed the door behind her, she could not help her lips forming into a smile as she looked upon the girl. When Chewbacca had carried her off the Falcon, Leia believed her to be a corpse. Now, Cyra's hair was free of ice, her skin was returning to its normal tone, and the cracks in her skin from the harsh cold were healing over. Her beautiful brown eyes were soft, unknowing. Leia wondered how long it would take for her eyes to be darkened with the truth of the last years. She alone faced the burden of catching the young girl up.
"My dear, how you've grown," mumbled Leia. She embraced the girl into her arms, taking a seat on the bed with her. "You're a woman, now."
"I've been a woman," muttered Cyra, clutching onto her. She neglected to realize she hadn't longed for a loving embrace until she felt it once more. "Thank you for bringing me back."
"You have Rey to thank for that," said Leia. She let go of Cyra, but held onto her hands.
Cyra studied the feel of Leia's hands in her own. Her thumb ran across the folds of her skin. She almost forgot people aged. As she grew older, so had Leia. All that truly changed of Leia was her appearance. Her hair. In her eyes lasted the same fiery spunk and determination that rested deep inside her since she was a young girl. All that truly changed of Leia was her appearance. Her hair. Wrinkles above her brow, deep, surely but Cyra wondered if it was from the chaos of her youth with Leia's son that caused such markings, or the aftermath of what Cyra left behind.
"I like what you've done with your hair," said Cyra softly.
Leia chuckled. "Thank you for noticing."
Cyra smiled. She looked to her side, where the sun was starting to warm her skin through the window. She saw parked X-Wings, a runaway. She saw trees, with no snow, and grass that was fully green. She watched the wind blow dandelions across the landscape.
"Where are we?" asked Cyra.
"D'Qar. The new Resistance base," explained Leia. Her hand reached to caress the girls head. "I thought while you were resting you might want a nice view of the green. I bet it's been a while since you've seen anything but ice."
Cyra nodded. She tore her eyes away from the luscious green of the land and returned her attention to Leia. She was almost afraid to ask.
"It's been about six years," said Leia.
Cyra hummed an acknowledgement. She had to wonder if she deserved Leia's generosity or her aid. Somewhere inside of her, she expected their reunion to be somewhat hostile.
"Han, Luke, and I...We thought Snoke had killed you and your father," continued Leia.
Cyra's brow raised. "So Snoke did kill my father, then."
"Luke sent Han and I a transmission. We ran to your house, but he was gone long before we got there. There was nothing more we could have done, Cyra," said Leia. She offered Cyra some degree of comfort by squeezing her hand.
Cyra nodded, though it didn't mean the confirmation hurt any less. Her father still met his end prematurely. Regardless of the truth that Cyra did not strike the killing blow that murdered her father, years of mediation still could not settle that in her heart, her refusal to follow Leia's son to the Dark Side was a factor in her father's death. She could never truly know if her father would've survived, if she had made the other decision, although she imagined he would be living the same life as Han and Leia, wondering where they went wrong with their children, feeling guilty, grieving. Perhaps it was better for him to have died not knowing what a coward his daughter would turn to be.
"The night the Temple burned down," said Leia softly, shocking Cyra from the catastrophic thoughts of her mind. "Ben went to you, didn't he?"
Cyra nodded once. She closed her eyes, focusing, remembering. It had been a long time since she thought vividly about that night. "He sent me a transmission, to meet him on Mandalore. He told me I had to come quick, to pack light, and hurry."
She recalled how quick she sprung into action. She hadn't seen him in months, at that point in time. He visited her sometimes during his training at the Temple, sneaking away, or asked to schedule to meet for a few hours during the night on a planet nearby Yavin-4. Him asking her to meet him abruptly was nothing out of the ordinary for them, since he left for Academy.
Cyra had kissed her father a quick goodbye. She told him she would return soon. "I'm just going to meet Ben," she had said, which prompted him to roll his eyes.
"You and that Solo boy," her father would say.
"Always," she would cheekily reply.
Cyra hadn't expected the kiss she gave her father to be her last. She expected to return home, return to him, but she did not. That was the final time she saw her father.
"Focus," rang Leia's voice, penetrating through the clouded thoughts of Cyra's mind.
Cyra took the A-wing from their garage. She traveled to Mandalore, the coordinates Ben had sent her, and found him pacing outside of his ship. When she landed next to him, she barely finished climbing down from the ladder when Ben crashed into her, grasping for her, his sobs shaking his body. Cyra's smile fell at once as he melted into her, holding her tightly to his body.
Cyra wrapped her arms around his abdomen. She was waiting for him to speak, knowing he would explain, in time. When he pulled his head away from her, she expected his lips to begin moving. He said nothing. His hand came down softly onto her cheek, his fingers reaching into her hair, and he brought their foreheads together. Familiar with what he was going to do, Cyra's eyes slammed shut, her jaw clenched. Soft gasps of pain exited their lips as he tore through the barrier in her brain, both of them feeling the intense crushing at the forefront of where their skin was touching. He started to show her what had happened, and the painful sensation in their skulls lessened as they both focused.
Through Ben's eyes, she watched his eyes blink open in confusion, startled awake by a green light through his eyelids. She saw the determined eyes of his Uncle, bleeding with the potential knowledge of a foretold future. Ben's hand entered the vision, his fingers curled, and with it, the hut came crashing down on both of them.
She heard, through his ears, the quaking booms of a thunderstorm. From seemingly nowhere, a storm had begun to brew above the Temple, the grey clouds darkening as they circled above the Temple. Ben ran for the building, the storm, knowing his fellow students were inside, and knowing it was not a normal storm.
Thunder struck in front of his running feet. He was tossed through the air. By the time he had hit the ground and thrown his head up, trying to shout a warning to his peers, a lightning bolt struck through the Temple's ceiling, setting it ablaze.
The noise had drawn three of his peers from their huts. Ben saw them. He wanted to yell for them, explain what had happened. The thought passed from his mind almost immediately. With the news his mother's political opponents had recently leaked and Ben's subsequent distancing from the others—it did not paint him in a kind light. He knew immediately where their heads would go. He had no other choice but to run. He was quick to his feet then, sprinting past his destroyed hut, through the gates into the Temple, and he ran into his Uncle's starship.
The three had followed, but they had inadequate flight skills compared to himself. It was in his blood, flying, and he took no time to incapacitate their ship before they broke through the atmosphere. He was running, now, not to his family, not to the voice he had been hearing in his head, but to the girl. The girl who he needed to go with him on the unfortunate journey ahead of him.
Cyra inhaled a loud, shaky breath as Ben separated their foreheads. She pushed his arms away from her, stepping back. He stared at her. He just wanting her to stay in his arms.
Cyra shook her head as she looked at him, her own eyes blinking rapidly, from the pain of his sudden entrance into her mind, and from the truth she was feeling from him. Though she hadn't been fond of Luke Skywalker in the last few years, she and Ben grew up hearing the praise from their families. She was made well aware of the man's status as a galaxy legend. Luke's uplifted status as a person was the sole reason Ben needed to show her and not tell her, and yet, even now, she could hardly believe what Ben was telling her.
She pushed Ben away from her, not out of discomfort or distrust in him, but because she could not fathom what injustice had been acted upon her lover. His wrongdoings were nothing of his origin; Luke acted on a vision, Leia's political opponents acted on sabotage. His relationship with his family was already on a loose line; he was infuriated, embarrassed to find out from the sneering apprentices of the Jedi Academy that he was a descendant of Darth Vader, and not his own family.
Cyra fell still in front of him when he let out a soft groan, pushing his hands against his face. He was a shell of the boy she knew. The confidence in his broad shoulders, the cheeky smile always on his lips, the mysterious twinkle in his brown eyes were all long gone. He was a different boy, in such little time since they last saw each other. His shoulders were hunched, his chin was low. His hair was draped in front of his eyes as he hung his head, his eyes hollow with obvious confusion and desperate pain.
"What options do we have?" asked Cyra softly. There was a reason he asked for her after the chaos that ensured. She could be trusted, away from their life on Chandrila. "What can I do?"
"I didn't do anything to cause this," said Ben quietly. There was suddenly nothing in his voice. When he spoke to her, it was monotonous, drab. The flash of his eyes up from the grass caught her hardened gaze, but he was quick to return his eyes to his feet. "It was Skywalker. The New Jedi Order."
Cyra squinted at him suspiciously. It was not unlike Ben to not initially take responsibility for blame, he was cheeky, and liked to be difficult. But the dull tone of his voice and the timid posture he held himself in said differently, pointing Cyra to suppose that Ben was believing in the truest sense that he held no blame for the situation at hand. He was not wrong for this, Cyra noted, but his absolutism was unlike him entirely.
"He told you you were too weak to be trained in the Force," Ben continued. He was pausing, before he spoke each word, his head tilting minutely, as if he was reaching to hear someone's voice. "But that's not true. He didn't want to train you because he saw our potential in the Force together. It's his fault you didn't come with me, he didn't believe in you. He hurt you, too, he hurt us."
Cyra had not yet been in a place of forgiveness towards Luke, which was why she could not immediately deny Ben's claim. She cried herself to sleep every night for years after Ben left and she was left behind. She was denied by the hero of her childhood stories, after she and Ben spent their childhood pretending to be Jedi, pretending to save civilizations, to bring peace to the galaxy. She held resentment for Luke, it was undeniable, and it seemed Ben was using this fact to seduce her to do something she did not understand.
"What are you on about?" asked Cyra.
Ben raised his head to meet her eyes. He was scarcely there. His tears were dried, his eyes were blank. His face was flat. His presence to her now was not one of comfort, but unsuspecting fear, and Cyra took a subtle step back from him. "The Dark Side is in my blood."
Cyra blinked hard. She shook her head. A pit of dread twisted her stomach into knots as she came to realize where Ben's train of thought was headed. "No," she said. "No, but that's not true. It may be true that your grandfather was turned by the Dark Side, but Luke didn't, Leia didn't. You won't, no matter how much it may seduce you, because you are a good man."
Ben's face changed little as she spoke. He continued to look at her, blankly, as if he was listening for her to finish instead of to understand.
Cyra stomped forward and took his head into hands, lifting his eyes to meet her own. "Look at me," she snapped. She searched his eyes for a spark of hope, a spark of him left within the darkness that was surrounding him. "You will rise above this, Ben. I know it's been a hard last few years, but there is light in your life, Ben, despite the darkness that has been our reality lately. I'm here, with you, I will not hurt you, and I'm with you, Ben. Always. Please, don't entertain this any longer. We need to see your mother--"
"No!" snapped Ben, grabbing her wrists. Cyra yelped in pain, and kicked her foot into his shin to release his grip of her. Ben reached for her, apologizing instantly, but Cyra looked at him, for the first time in their lives, with fearful eyes. The cracks in their hearts were simultaneous.
"Please," he begged her. "I need you. I have no one else. My mother, my father, Luke...They don't want me. But Snoke, he's been with me, like you have. He's making it all make sense. I need something to make sense, the way you and I do."
Cyra froze. "Who is Snoke?"
Ben ignored question. "What do you suppose happens now?" he asked. He paused as her eyes darted around within his, thinking. He continued, "I can't go back to Skywalker. I can't trust him. I go back to my mother, my father, and they won't believe me. They'll take Luke's side—I have no one left. Except you."
Ben stepped forward. Cyra did not flinch away from him, but she continued to scrunch her eyebrows together, unsure of his touch. The corner of his lips turned downwards as a tear fell from her eye, which she harshly wiped away.
"You waited for me back home," he said softly, knowing she was waiting on his next words. "When Skywalker and my mother rejected your training, you could've gone. You could have let me leave for the Academy, told me goodbye. You could have moved to a different planet and started your life. But you waited for me, all these years. You kept in touch. You dropped everything to see me, when I could make time to see you. Why?"
"You know why, Ben."
"I do," he whispered. He didn't touch her, although the tips of their shoes were nearly together. He towered over her small frame, and she avoided looking up at him any longer. "We've always been the same. Together. Now, it continues. We are alone in this universe. You're my family. I know that now. Just come with me. I'll train you. We can be together, strong in the Force. It'll be like how we used to play when we were kids."
"Except we'll be murdering people instead of saving them," Cyra quipped. She raised her chin to look at him. This time, as their eyes met, his brow was furrowed. "You're asking me to join the side of a balance I don't want to be apart of anymore."
"It's in my blood," mumbled Ben. He unhooked his lightsaber from his belt, holding it loosely in his hand, before he tossed it aside.
Cyra watched it sink into the green grass. She couldn't part her eyes from it. He had tossed his weapon away as if it meant nothing to him. She remembered the letter, the excitement in his writing, as he told her the story of how he and the Apprentices crafted them. His detachment from his weapon was a step in a direction he wanted to take. Throwing it away so carelessly was a defining moment in the path he was succumbing to.
Cyra officially held no inclination of the way this meeting was going to go. Nor how it would end.
"We don't have to end," Ben continued. Cyra looked at him, startled, as if he was in her thoughts. He wasn't, not at this time. He looked at her, even though she could not bring her eyes to meet his for longer than a mere second. With every word he said, his demeanor was changing, he came into confidence, and he felt her start to cower. "None of this is your fault, Cyra. The wretched actions done to you and I, it's all because of Skywalker. He took me away from you. But he has no control over my life, now. No one does."
Cyra's tears fell from her eyes, though she could barely make noise. His words had little impact on her, but her connection to him, the way their hearts were tied together, allowed her to feel the conflict within his body. In her brief time in his head, even then, she felt the whispers, the calling of someone foreign in his mind. She assumed that must have been this person, this Snoke. It had been too long since they were together, too many unforeseeable actions had been taken. Ben Solo's path was shifting, and it was straying from her own.
"You're wrong," she said. "If you choose to follow the Dark, you'll just be under the control of another Master who will fail you."
"Snoke wants you to come with me," whispered Ben, his head moving to her shoulder. His hot breath was on her neck, her ear. His warm cheek fell against her own. "He doesn't see you as weak, like Skywalker. He sees you as an important part of my journey to power. Come with me. Train with me. We can be together, after all these years, away from everything. We can escape from our parents. Your power in the Force will grow, it will equal mine, with training. We'll come into power, together."
Cyra held in her sob. His closeness to her did not bring a warm feeling to her body, as it usually did. The closer he got, the more of her body he took into his hands, the further into herself she wanted to hide. His words did not match who she knew. She did not know the man in front of her, nor did she want to anymore.
Cyra's hand reached to touch his waist. She felt him sigh against her, believing her to give in. In a quick stroke, she pulled his lightsaber to her hand, pushed her other hand against his chest to force distance between them, and she raised the lightsaber beside her face. It shook in her hands. Cyra tried to stay strong in her actions.
Ben's face was still. He held little to no reaction to her. They both knew he would overpower her just as they both knew she could not bring harm to him.
"I will not follow you to the Dark Side," Cyra managed to choke out. "Stop this, now, and come with me. We'll figure this out. We'll settle the conflict in your heart, we'll be together. We'll get away from all of it. Everything is fixable, still, just please. Please don't choose the path that leads from me."
"If you refuse to come with me, Snoke will kill your father."
Cyra's breath stopped. Her brow furrowed, her lips split. She did not need Ben to repeat his words, because they were circling in her head. He stared at her. No emotion fell over his face as he delivered the message. Was that all he was? A vessel for Snoke's orders?
Cyra tried to feel him. She stared at his chest, she tried to feel his emotions, she tried to enter his thoughts. She could feel nothing. He was blocking himself from her, or Snoke was. Influencing him was her next move, but Snoke had ensured she could not use the Force to bring them back together. He had been listening to their conversation, he had probably felt her the same way Ben did, if he was so intricately pulling the strings in his mind.
"You don't understand. You have to come with me, now, while there's time," pleaded Ben. It was him. He was blocking himself from Snoke to speak to her, alone, one last time. The effort to keep Snoke out of his head was causing his body to tremble. Tears fell once again from his eyes, begging her. "This has been his plan, all along. We go together. He thinks we have some type of a bond, that we're stronger together. I think that's why Luke didn't want you to come with, he sensed us both turning, and he tried to stop it."
"I would never," snapped Cyra.
Ben shook his head. "I've seen it. When you were in my head, I was in yours. I saw you and I, together. Leading. If you don't come with me now, Snoke will kill your father. You can't hide from me, Cyra, from him, because I feel you through the Force, and through me, Snoke does, too. He won't stop until you're with us. He knows exactly where your father lives. He's seen it all through me. You won't have time to warn your dad, to save him. End this now. Save your father. Just come with me."
"You would let him kill me? You're going to let him kill my father?" asked Cyra.
"I'm not strong enough to protect you from him," Ben admitted. He swallowed. Emotion returned to his eyes; he was begging her, before Snoke overtook his thoughts again. "I can't lose you. You're all I have left, Cyra, I can't lose you, too. Come with me, please. Your father doesn't deserve to die. He loved me and cared for me. You both did. Please."
Cyra's fingers lifted from the hilt of Ben's lightsaber. Their eyes were together. Ben's were pleading with her, scared. That's all he was. A scared boy, betrayed by his family, isolated in his despair. She wondered if he could be blamed for the actions leading to this moment, if they both could. Cyra cared for the man in front of her. She knew love through him before putting words to the feeling. But she would not follow him. She would not choose a side to the inevitable war that would spawn from this, when it would be choosing a side to a war that would only bring ruin. Cyra had one choice left. It would have to do, until she could get her head together.
Ben was focused solely on keeping Snoke from his head that he hadn't been tuning into her. He did not notice her fingers flexing as one hand fell from his lightsaber, and he surely did not anticipate Cyra using the Force to lift a rock and knock him unconscious.
A gasp exited from Cyra's lips as she opened her eyes, her vision dizzy and blurred. Hands settled onto her cheeks. Her eyes focused on Leia, in front of her, shushing her raggedy breathing. Leia pulled the girl into her arms. Cyra clutched the woman. She tried to focus on steadying her breathing. She tried to feel Leia's arms around her, rocking her, until she, too, fell unconscious to the world.