Ren Waugh-Solo (behindthemask) wrote in noexits, @ 2022-02-05 19:42:00 |
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Biting, bitter - these didn’t even seem to provide an accurate descriptor for the way that it threatened. It was cold beyond a simple winter, or the excursions he’d sometimes taken with his father when he was a boy. This was a dangerous cold.
One of Palpatine’s tricks maybe.
Underlying the crescendo cry of ‘cold cold cold cold’ was a subtler but equally worrisome one - exhaustion. Whatever Palpatine had done thus far had left him exhausted in a way that Ben Solo couldn't really remember having ever been before. But he pushed himself up off the ground. Pushing past the exhaustion into the Force to try to provide some protection against the elements around him.
Exegol was no more.
Ben blinked up into a landscape that was full of ice and snow, with no sign of Palpatine, or Exegol, or Rey. (An all too familiar panic started to blossom up, one that was cut out only by a realization that no- he could sense Rey.
He pulled his arms around him, the simple sweater he’d been wearing no protection against the elements or the temperature that would likely freeze Threepio’s joints.
There were buildings all around him. He had landed in some sort of park or center around which a series of buildings were located. Buildings would be warmer, probably. (And the slowness with which thoughts were piling in was worrisome) He could feel Rey, and she seemed to be further out from the buildings, but not in danger? This was less clear. But it seemed true.
Ben pulled everything he could from the Force and pushed himself forward in the direction of Rey.
Rey was lying underneath a T-47 that had never made it out of the hanger bay, back pressed against a board that had rollers attached to the underside to make it easier to slide underneath. By this point in the morning, she'd already removed the access panel and yanked out handfuls of wiring, with delicate fingers now searching for specific components. A rather weak flashlight was held between her teeth and tilted up so she could see better in the dim light of the hanger. Logically, she knew she ought to divert her attention to a multitude of other projects inside of the abandoned base. Restoring the power supply, bringing the communications towers back online, seeing if any of the remaining ships could be resurrected to get off planet...
...but her focus was on something a bit more personal. The hand that was shielded underneath a black glove was unsatisfactory in her own opinion. She had no way of knowing the extent of its capabilities as her previous self had. All she saw was flaws. And while the campus had a multitude of technological objects, most were not from her homeworld, and would need her to examine for far longer to understand how they worked. With a wide array of equipment to scavenge here? She was going to take everything she thought might be useful. She could get creative after she had a plethora of options. And besides? BB-8 was there as well and he was working to help. She'd given him her communication device and told him to see what he could do about the power. She didn't expect to see him until closer to the end of the daylight hours.
While she'd managed to wrap her mind around quite a lot in the past week, between having forgotten an entire life and people showing from all points in time and reality, she'd not been prepared for feeling him. One moment, everything felt as normal as it could and the next? She could sense him, off in the distance, but very much present. Her hand stilled against the wires and she blinked up at what she'd been looking at, before moving to pull the flashlight out from between her teeth.
Doubt immediately rushed forward. She was no longer surrounded by the unfamiliar but the incredibly familiar. Loneliness could be influencing her, could it not. Turning her head off in the direction she knew Derleth to be, she focused for a moment. His presence didn't fade. It was weaker than she'd been accustomed to when he was still alive but it was present and unwavering.
A moment later, she was kicking back with her legs, pushing herself out from underneath the speeder and leaping up to her feet. Motor oil was painted all against her clothing but she didn't care. She was bounding now for the exit, leaving behind the satchel she'd been filling with spare parts, and she called out in the distance, "I'M GOING BACK, BEEBEE!"
She didn't wait for a response.
Running through snow wasn't ideal. As she rushed, trying to combat her need for a speedy ascent against the chill that bit at her even with her stolen coat, she chastised herself for not focusing on the ships first. It would have been better if the speeder was working. She gave a shake of her head and pulled on her hood to protect against the wind.
When she realized not only was she getting closer, but that he felt as though he was moving towards her, she frowned. It'd been so long since she'd been able to speak through the connection.
'Go back to the buildings.'
He'd made it this far, the cold wasn't that bad, he could find her.
It was followed however, on the tail end of realizing that it was getting more and more difficult to raise his legs, and maybe there was some sense to what she was saying.
It was definitely Rey.
Or… was it? Could this all be some elaborate plot by Palpatine to confuse him, or separate them, weaken them? Was it actually in his mind, or had he somehow been pushed somewhere else? It could be a trap.
He stopped, the awareness that his legs were heavy and numb, and his ability to shield himself at all from the cold seemed to be waning as well. The buildings might… Maybe it wasn't a bad idea.
A trap, even if it was one, in a warm building would be easier to deal with than this cold.
He turned around, took a step forward and wavered.
It was right there. He hadn't gotten so far out of the structures that there wasn't a building near him. He didn't know what it was, only that it promised the possibility of not being as frigid as the air around him. But his legs seemed frozen in place. He focused - but that pulled away from the focus of trying to keep himself marginally shielded.
'Rey'
The focus of even trying to communicate that way kept his foot from landing steady, and he fell over into the snow again.
Maybe he'd just lay here for a moment and then he'd do the buildings.
A small part of her felt foolish now for having given her device to Beebee and for having run out as quickly as she had. If she'd have kept the device close, she could have asked Yennefer to open one of her portals. It'd have been easier to collect Ben from the other end. But there was nothing to do about that now.
Her heart rate sped up as she felt his struggle. If he was brought here only to be taken away again...
...no.
She couldn't think like that and her face scrunched up as she heard her name echo in her mind. She tried to convey a sense of calm and reassurance through the bond.
Seeing Derleth ahead, and the tracks in the snow, she stumbled the final few feet towards his form. "Come on Ben, come on," she urged, trying to hook her arms underneath his arms.
"Rey," was what he opened his lips to say, but it likely came out in more of a mumble, where the actual question that followed it: 'Where are we' was likely completely indistinguishable as actual words.
He did reach out with the intention of standing up beside her. Sheer determination did get him halfway there. Ben Solo had always managed to pull stamina beyond what others might have, but he'd been dumped into this situation with much of his energy depleted, and what Palpatine had not managed, the cold of Hoth threatened to complete.
She didn't know which was a better choice but she did know that her rooms weren't far. There was space and privacy and plenty of blankets she could wrap him in. With the thought, she made up her mind and began to pull them both towards the dormitories. And as she trudged along, she did a quick glance to his vitals, with the concern still pulsing through her.
She remembered far too well what it felt like when he'd been dangerously close to being lost...and what it felt like when he had.
Pulling open the door to the hall, she let him slink against the wall and bent down next to him, quickly rolling off her coat. It was far too small for him but it was better than nothing and she draped it across his front as soon as it was off. "Hey, hey, look at me," she whispered, hand reaching out to press against his cheek, his eyes flickering open to look at her briefly before closing again.
She took in a steadying breath, letting her hand drift down from his cheek to rest against his chest, and closed her own eyes. The last time she'd transferred energy to another had also been with him among the wreckage of the Death Star. She was careful, not transferring more than he would need and more than she could give, and only opened her eyes once she was sure he would be alright.
The thought, paranoid as it might be, that this could be a trick was resurrected, because she didn't look quite like he remembered her looking. Her hair was shorter, he was pretty sure, and something felt off... different?
He opened his mouth to say this and was hit in the side of his cheek by something pointy and a little bit sharp.
"What?" He said instead.
It was as though she was right back in the throne room, with her Grandfather looming over them, pain pulsing through her as she fought to break from the torment.
She pulled in a breath and her eyes flicked to the airplane that had hit him in the side of the head. "Huh," she said in turn. She didn't have an explanation for him. A moment passed before she sat back up again, shoving his shoulder.
"I said I was coming!"
Ben reached for it, only to be distracted by the shive.
“Ow,” he exclaimed, attention shifting back to the woman in front of him.
His fingers still tingled from the cold, and he hadn’t yet really clocked the room he was in - a dormitory of some variety maybe? - but he refocused on her as his fingers grasped the parchment.
“I was going to come find you.”
Which, at the time had seemed logical, and only now was he realizing he had no memory of how he had gotten from outside to indoors where ever they were.
Oh.
“Sorry,” he added, soft and a little uncertain.
She knew she'd have done the exact same if the tables had been turned.
And with that realization, she gave a shake of her head to his apology, "No. It's alright." Lifting her other hand, without thinking of how it might alarm him, she gestured to the parchment. "What does it say?"
He opened his mouth to say this but what came out instead was: “What happened to your arm!?”
"Beebee said something about an airship but honestly, I've not been able to make any sense of what that means. He's gotten frustrated with explanations," she explained before her head turned back to him. "He says I've forgotten things."
The arm didn't look like anything he'd ever seen in their galaxy, but maybe he could make sense of what Beebee knew. His gaze took in the room, and he was reminded of the parchment in his hand, which he pulled up and opened.
He read through it, and handed it over to Rey. "Pocket Dimension? Is this…"
But this didn't feel like something Palpatine would do. Ben wasn't certain he'd even ever heard of anything like this before. "How long before me did you arrive?"
She let the statement hang in the air as he scanned through the parchment. When it was handed to her, she read it quickly, before giving a nod of her head. It aligned with what she'd been told by Ikol and Hugh the week prior, at least. "This would have been useful last week," she mumbled to herself before holding it back out to him.
"I don't know. I only remember last week but Beebee and others said I was here for months before." She sighed.
He folded it, putting it down on the ground and tried to take stock of the situation. He still felt tired - whatever Palpatine had done to him, it had worn him out, and the cold had worsened the situation perhaps. He wasn't quite ready to start walking around or moving again, but it didn't appear that he needed too. Rey didn't seem overly worried or alarmed in the Force, which meant that he could at least try to breathe.
This was something he hadn't really done. After he'd spoken with his father - or however that had gone - he'd just been determined to get to Rey, to help her. He hadn't known if it would work, and he supposed, technically he still didn't know.
But if she'd been here for months (possibly) then time obviously moved differently here because he'd just been with her. It also didn't seem as if this was something Palpatine could have done. It seemed too grand, even for him.
"You've got a coat. Is that from the… Theater they mentioned?"
She gave a small shake of her head and reached down, picking up the sleeve of the coat so she could turn it towards him, accentuating the rebels symbol on the arm. "I found it," she said quietly before nudging her head in the direction she'd initially come from. "There's a rebel base not too far," she explained.
Looking down to him now, she hesitated before saying, "How about we move further in? I'll take you to the room I've been staying in and we can discuss more?"
His gaze flickered over the rebel symbol, all too familiar, really. And with it a rush of complicated emotions. He doubted he would be welcomed by any Rebels who knew him, but he also wasn't certain that was the most important thing in front of him. He breathed in, and nodded to her suggestion.
As he breathed out, he pushed himself to his feet, testing out his ability to do so without falling over again. The energy she'd passed to him did seem to have stabilized everything that the cold might have done, and he did pull up steady, for the most part and he glanced towards her to lead the way.
"Are there Rebels there?"
"No, it's abandoned entirely," she noted as she extended a hand to him. "We'll need to venture back to it once you've recovered. I was scavenging supplies and trying to establish a communication channel."
She waited for him to take hold of her hand, not breaking her gaze as she did.
He stood for a minute, feeling like he was probably up and alright, he glanced down at her extended hand, and after a moment reached over to take it.
"What supplies?"
"Anything and everything?" It was hard to distinguish what might be useful down the line. She simply knew that they weren't going to have access to the resources of their galaxy after this week. "I was trying to find components for..." She hesitated, eyes glancing down to the other hand at her side, "...to modify the prosethetic but..." She shrugged. It wasn't as though she completely knew what she was doing.
He glanced down the hall. "This isn't - this doesn't feel like a rebel base,” he ventured, trying to get a feel for the sort of place they were in. The buildings from the outside, although he hasn’t really been able to pay attention to them well? They had felt more like something from Chandrila maybe although that didn’t feel quite right either.
Her hand was warm against his and strangely comforting. The simplicity of that sort of touch wasn’t something he’d felt for a long time. “What planet?” His mind went through possible snow worlds that he knew the rebels had at one time been on, running through possibilities.
She glanced over at him now. "The base is a mile out. It's why it took me a bit to get to you. This is the University that's trapped in the time loop," she explained, not feeling too confident as she did so. It was more like she was repeating words that had been recently said to her but that she didn't fully grasp.
His final question made her hesitate. She'd felt a string of her own personal emotions once she'd realized where they had landed, even if she'd never been to the planet herself. But she knew its history and it's history tied to those she missed. "Hoth," she said gently.
"We'll only be here a week. And then next week we'll be somewhere else."
This was stated, not a question. But it did put a different spin on the situation and he could understand why she'd been out gathering supplies. Hoth was hardly a habitable planet, but if they were near a rebel base, even an abandoned one - which it seemed that this was the case - then that was a situation they might not have next week.
The thought that his mother and his father both had once been on this planet filtered in, and Ben buried the thought to consider later.
"I should get better clothes, but I could help you. How long have you been here?"
Though, from Rey's outlook, she didn't know quite what to expect in the coming weeks. The week before hadn't been too outlandish or concerning. It had mostly been the people that were a concern and she easily could keep away from the man named Michael. She gave him a slight smirk. "I would rather you didn't brave the elements in that threadbear sweater, Ben," she teased.
"This is day two. I found the base early yesterday and we've been establishing pathways to get there quicker. I just...forgoed that earlier."
And at least it was easy enough in the week for them to have some time. He suspected if they worked together they could bring a lot of things back, and while he didn't really have any inkling of what they would need. Pocket universe, and switching up locations every week seemed to suggest that not wasting time at a location with equipment - however stripped out it might be - would be prudent. "What pathways?"
"Something called portals. You need to have one of the creators open them but it allows you to step right through to your destination. Yennefer is who I've been speaking with about it."
As she finished saying this, she took a turn into a doorway, A quick glance to him, "This is mine," she stated before she slid her key in. She waved immediately towards the individuals inside of the room and nudged her head for Ben to follow as she moved for another inner door. She only hesitated for a brief moment as she reached down to scratch behind the ears of a dog that bounded up from the seating to come to her. "Good boy," she whispered.
The dog was startling, mostly because he wasn't used to animals, and he hadn't anticipated the idea of Rey having one, but he smiled a little nervously at the animal.
"It's -" He'd been thinking adequate would be a good descriptor, based on the hallway that he'd seen, but as it turned out the room looked maybe even nice. It wasn't the basic spartan look he'd expected from dormitories or his time in various ships. "It looks comfortable."
"It's none of my doing," she informed Ben but she didn't disagree with the sentiment. It reminded her more of the suites she'd seen when she'd been traveling to look for allies with Leia and the resistance; when they'd spoken with higher up officials. It was nothing like what she could remember staying in before -- despite photos showing the contrary on the iPhone that was still waiting with Beebee. Pushing open her bedroom, she looked past Ben towards Hugh.
"Do you mind if he stays out here for a bit?"
"No, of course not," the man with curly hair and the datapad shrugged. And there was a beat before he added. "I'm going to go out, but I'll take Pilot out before I do."
Ben offered an attempt at something resembling a smile although he followed Rey, sticking his hands into his pocket as he did so.
There was something in the pockets but it wasn't until he was in her room that he actually pulled whatever it was out, about to ask her about it when he noticed the portrait of his mom.
He stared at it, face impassive, although a rush of emotions swirled, and there was no way that Rey couldn't feel them, he wasn't even really trying to hide them.
She was in the middle of tossing the coat onto a chair when she felt the swirl of emotions and her gaze moved over to Ben. She glanced at the portrait, with a sense of realization, and pulled in her bottom lip.
She'd not let go of his hand the whole time and she realized this now. A gentle squeeze was pressed to it, with her uncertain what to say. She was still not used to the dwelling and it hadn't dawned on her to warn him. "It was here when I arrived," she explained.
It occurred to him that even if he'd landed somewhere other than here, he couldn't go back home. His father and his mother were both gone now, and he was quite literally starting over from a point that he hadn't thought he would ever return to. Who he was now… Who was he now?
He looked down at his other hand, and pulled the small datapad up. "The datapads they use?" He queried, although it was fairly obvious that it must be. It was nice, he supposed, that they offered him one considering that he didn't have anything with him.
The other item in his pocket revealed itself to be a key, which he pulled out. "Is this #105?" He hadn't really paid attention to the door.
Her attention came back to him and she nodded in response. Hers hadn't been in her pocket. It had been on the bedside table when she'd woken. It made sense to provide him with one immediately. She eyed the key for a moment. "No, this is 504."
She hadn't considered that there wasn't an option to which room you were given. She'd surmised that her other self simply had been friends with Hugh and Malachi. The keys made more sense, of course. "We can go find 105 if you want to."
"Maybe in a bit," he told her. "What else should I know?"
He stepped across to the window, putting his hand up to the glass to see if he could feel the cold through it. It was there, albeit not nearly as much as he might have expected considering the temperatures outside. He turned back around, ignoring the portrait. "Are there others here from home?"
The question was met with a sense of dread from Rey. Her thoughts turned to Exegol, to falling back after exerting her energy and to being pulled away from the brink to gaze up toward him. She sighed and cast her gaze down. It would be easier to focus on the here and the now even if she felt as though she knew little at all.
She moved towards the bed, taking a seat on the edge, with her hands gripping the sides. "I think it'd be hours going over what you should know," she noted, before looking back up towards him. "There was someone. She was from well before our time. Dr. Aphra? But she left yesterday."
It seemed as if, on the bright side (if that was one), he was unlikely to have to deal with people who knew him from home - besides Rey - and she had at least consistently been a person who treated him as Ben Solo.
Even if he didn't really know who Ben Solo was anymore.
That felt like a tomorrow problem, or a next day problem, or maybe it would just work itself out.
"Alright, then, maybe we should see about that coat? That feels important right now."
As for the need to get him something more suitable for the elements? She gave a nod in response. "We can go whenever you are ready." They'd just need to take a portal to minimize his exposure in the meantime.