disequilibrium

[ After about 15 solid minutes of trying to use the voice function on her device, Rey's already hitting anxiety level maximum. Finding the stupid thing had been hard enough, after wiping at her eyes a dozen times she couldn't clear the blur, and then the eventual black, that overtook her vision; but trying to get the phone to recognize 'call Ben Solo' had lead to a series of incredibly upsetting failures. Finally (finally), she made some progress, biting out the words 'call Kylo Ren' to which the device happily complied.

Hopefully, after leaving him at the Colosseum, he would reply. As it was she was afraid to get off her knees in the middle of her room. ]

Ben? Ben. Are you there?

[ In the midst of his own wretched morning, it takes a few moments to locate the communicator amongst the room’s contents, now lying in half destructed states across the floor. Once located, he answers with barely a glance towards the caller information — who else would it be? ]

I’m here.

[ Her voice is expected but the fear it contains is not. For the first time since waking up, it occurs to him that this may not be an isolated loss. ]

What’s wrong?

[ She tries to calm herself, and reaches across the force for him, finding nothing. it's not even that he's blocked off from her, and even though she can hear his unmistakable timbre over the phone... she wonders for a half a second if it's a trick. ]

I-Ben. I've..I've suddenly gone blind? [ Breathe Rey, Breathe. ] I can't-I cant see. And I can't feel you. I'm not sure what's happening to me... but I need help.

[ There’s a moment of silence on the line. Even as she shares her loss, part of him rebels against admitting his own. It’s not the superstitious fear of a child, the idea that speaking it out loud makes it real, but it is a weakness. A failing he’s uncomfortable admitting to anyone. Even her.

(I can’t feel you.)

Then again, she hasn’t left him much choice. ]

You can’t feel me because I’m no longer connected to the Force. It began this morning.

[ It’s spoken briskly, almost matter-of-fact in delivery. Surely she can connect the dots and any details can be left for when they’re in the same room. ]

If you tell me where you are, I can come to you.

[ Let's be real, he knows next to nothing about providing aid to the suddenly sight impaired. He won't refuse her request, though. Perhaps not being alone is better than the alternative right now. ]

You're what?

[ That derails her train of thought, concern blooming for him that takes over her fear for a moment. With her eyes suddenly blinking out on her, the force has steadily been feeling stronger here. It's not seeing per-say, but she's starting to feel more. That sensation that has been with her all her life even without a name was growing stronger, ever so slightly. It's terrifying as well as awe-inspiring.

To imagine suddenly being cut off from that as Ben has... She'd rather lose her eyes. Sympathy floods her tone, and she questions even calling him. No. It'd be better to deal with this together. Who else could understand? The hole in the force that used to be Ben Solo feels all the more like an open sore, knowing what has happened. ]

Third Spire, 801.

“I’ll be there soon.” And because he has no interest in repeating himself, he promptly hangs up. This is your chosen caregiver, Rey. Enjoy.

The distance between them is insignificant and it becomes even shorter when one is trying very hard to clear their mind of anything else. Panic still gnaws at every step but he refuses to give in to it—to consider the absence within him. At least not until a solution presents itself.

Once arrived, he enters without knocking, taking stock and pausing only when he sees her still in the middle of the room. Without the connection between them, it's impossible to tell if fear is the motivator behind her position or if there's something else. An injury obtained during her current state, perhaps?

“Are you unharmed?” Wait. After a moment, he clarifies. “Besides the obvious.”

The call clicks to an end with absolutely no ceremony and Rey quietly questions herself on reaching out to him in the first place. How could she not though? As far as understanding her, or the force, or their world, or her history...she really didn't have much option. And now all she could do was wait for him to arrive and either (would he? Would he strike her down? He hadn't on the Supremacy, but she had also left him to fend for himself in the colosseum. As she was she wouldn't be much of a challenge) end this once and for all, or help her. The time it takes is suffocating. Without any sense of light (the artificial ones in the room were bright, but not warm) or heat indoors, she had no way to register a minute, past counting her own heartbeats which were loud in her ears.

Calm down Rey. You can do this. No weakness. She berates herself, moving from her prone position on her knees to cross legged, trying to focus on what Luke had said to her before. Close your eyes. He had said. That part was certainly covered. Reach out. Rey sets the phone down next to her knee, any small movement making her feel dizzy from so long without any visual cues of up or down. Reach out. She could do that.

Her mind threads out into the force as she does, her senses reaching much further than her eyes were ever able to. Even dampened here, she can feel the balance, the interconnection. The threads there of weave together, and she tries to (with as little panic as she can muster) urge them into familiar shapes. The room she is in. The Door.

Kylo Ren pushes the door open, and breaks her already tenuous focus, and she lifts her face towards the sound, eyes opening out of instinct. She cant see him, and he's still a void in the force. He feels like a recording, and she struggles to her feet, more from the lasck of balance than the effort itself.

"I'm not hurt. Just blind." She reaches out for him, aimed from the distance somewhere past his shoulder. "I think that's enough."

"I wouldn’t know,” he says, an undercurrent of resentment simmering beneath the words. Envy is an old, familiar feeling, one which has always come naturally to him, though rarely directed towards her. Still, it’s difficult to push aside. The disparity between what’s been taken from them by this place is too wide to inspire anything else.

Her stumbling proves an adequate distraction, and he’s torn from his own thoughts as she reaches out—hand pawing ineffectively at the air. Sooner rather than later, she’ll make contact, fingers hitting the thin material of his new (weather appropriate and grudgingly accepted) clothing. Besides shifting his weight slightly, he makes no attempt to move away. It’s... natural to seek reassurance this way given her current state and the sensation isn’t unpleasant. Merely strange.

"There are stories of Force-sensitives who were able to overcome blindness." Despite the situation, there’s a note of curiosity to be found as he continues. "They used the energy around them to mimic sight."

"With the right focus,” and the right teacher. “You’d be capable of doing the same.”

"I'm sorry." Guilt prods her in the heart again, and she bites down on her bottom lip at the sour note to his voice. Of course. She shouldn't be so flippant after what he has lost. Her fingers find his arm, and she's surprised not to find the overwhelmingly thick layers of fabric that usually lay there. She spreads her hand over his bicep, the other finding his chest as she orients herself to him, stepping close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating off of him, the smell of his clean clothes. It's not that her sense of touch or smell are heightened, but without the distraction of her sight she finds herself slightly overwhelmed by it. Without this, he felt disembodied, simply a ghost of a voice.

Under her fingers he's solid as stone. It's a strange inversion of seeing him through the force, all energy without mass. She traces down the shape of his neck and collar bone with her fingertips through the thin fabric of his shirt, at eye level if she could actually see it, and then down his biceps again, building a silhouette in her mind. She could almost picture him- And then he speaks again and she jumps slightly, heat lifting color to her cheeks.

"I've heard stories of people doing amazing things with the force; after years of practice and instruction." She really should stop touching him, but without anything else in the room to anchor her she's more than a little afraid the world would try and up heave her again. "Unfortunately I left the ancient texts back on the Falcon." Not that she could have read them anyway, but-

His intention was never to prompt an apology and he’s honestly not certain how to respond once one is given. Rey is no more responsible for this situation than he is, yet she still allows guilt to sway her. Somehow, it’s an unsurprising trait. Not entirely unlike the ease she shows broaching the space between them.

He holds still, hardly breathing, as her fingers shift across his torso in a way which borders on excessive. There’s always been a tension between them but this-this is new. Perhaps because, for the first time since the Force started pulling them together, there’s no threat of interruption, no immediate disturbance to pull their attention away. It’s just the two of them, alone, without the connection to rely on. It may be a good thing she’s unable to see his expression, as the thought prompts a feeling of uncertainty. Followed by a look of pure disdain as she continues speaking.

"You don’t need them." The ramblings of Jedi long past would provide nothing she didn’t already contain. "It’s not a complicated technique. I can show you how it's done."

"This is what you've been gunning for from the beginning." She smiles somewhat crookedly, trying to alleviate the strange pressure that hangs in the air. The door is closed and they are alone, and she tries very hard not to think about that. Humans weren't all that common around Nima Outpost, and definitely not ones around her age. Those who did live in the area were weathered by sand and sun, and were to be avoided at all costs lest she be trapped alone with them. It makes this... strange.

"To be my teacher?" She moves her hands down further to his elbows, just holding on enough to keep herself grounded. "I'm much more amiable to the idea this time around."

"Good." He refrains from voicing how much easier things could have been if she’d accepted his offer in the past, but perhaps the thought is evident enough through the satisfaction in his voice. Rey’s power has been part of what’s drawn them together since it first awakened, a bright and untamed beacon. His desire to help shape and master it hasn't waned and now, here, an opportunity has presented itself.

He has no intention of letting that slip by.

"You’ll want to sit down." He shifts one hand, sans glove, to grasp her forearm lightly. An easier way to keep contact as they move. "The first step is a form of meditation."

She really really should be paying attention to what he is saying. She does, after all, want to be able to see in some fashion again. But he moment his warm hand closes around her arm, bereft of the heavy leather that usually covers it, her mind goes blank. He feels so...bare without them, and the hairs on her arms prickle upwards as she jerks her face upwards, staring blindly in the direction that she believes his eyes are.

When they had touched the barest of fingertips together in that hut on Ahch-to it had felt incredibly intimate. The tingle of electricity had rushed through her along with hints of the future, her body alive and on fire with feeling like she had never felt before. His hand now is solid and warm, even without the amplification through the force, it still makes her shiver.

“You feel almost naked without your gloves.” She feels the words tumble from her head onto her tongue and she almost bites it off when it reaches her own ears. Oh...that sounded much worse than intended. She ducks her head in embarrassment, and steps back, bending a knee to drop to the ground. “I mean. I’ll just. Sit down. Right.”

Edited 2018-05-24 12:31 (UTC)

... Well, then. With that comment, it becomes clear which of them is truly the most socially unaware. Congratulations.

Her own fumbling helps to cover his reaction, a momentary pause where he looks away from her sightless attempt to lock eyes, until amusement at her expense helps assuage the worst of the self-consciousness within him. Despite the distinctly different circumstances, it’s a feeling which reminds him of nothing more than one particular moment when the Force had brought them together previously. Just prior to the hut.

"You’ve seen my hands before."

And rather more than that.

Edited 2018-05-29 16:41 (UTC)

She wants to crawl into a hole at that very moment, her face getting hot as she pauses, now half kneeling infront of him as she tucks head, fingers drumming on her own knee. "This is different."

Kriff, she needs to shut up. She should never have called him here. Even someone like her, who had grown up on the fringes of any fringe of society, should know better than to open their mouth like that. It IS different though, the two of them behind closed doors, and her unable to assertain exactly how clothed he was. Kylo Ren could be wearing a beautiful pink short sleeved ball gown for all she could tell.

Alas, her mental image is considerably more interesting than the truth of his current wardrobe.

And now it’s his turn to be awkward, as her response provokes no immediate reply. What is there to say? He swallows down the instinctive different how? which lies on the tip of his tongue. For once, there’s no urge to push, to force her into verbalizing what she means until the truth of it can’t be denied. There’s already quite enough of that. Any answer she could give would only confront the tension of the room directly—more so than the previous verbal clumsiness.

No. Better to ignore it.

He resolves to do just that and starts to kneel as well, keeping one hand on her arm until they’re both settled. Only then does he begin to pull away.

"How familiar are you with mediation?"

The tension in Rey's shoulders give way as he speaks, shifting back to their previous topic without a blink. She feels him move, the sound of his knee hitting the floor, and she is pulled ever so slightly forward as he settles down, and she follows, chewing on her bottom lip. She folds her legs crossed in front of her as he releases her arm, the skin there feeling tingly from the loss of the pressure.

"I've had plenty of occasion to simply sit still and stare at a wall or daydream, but...meditation not as much." Rey replies eagerly, resting her hands on her ankle as she leans forward towards him, happy for a distraction from the weird feeling in the air around them. "I do think I understand the concept though."

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Loss Event: Day 1

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