Ben Solo & Paul Atreides
Day 1, Canon Puncture Week | The Green | Low
⚠ None? I can't think of any
While he didn't look forward to it, Ben Solo was growing used to the resets, and there was a world of difference between resetting into a hostile environment - whether because of things in the environment or the environment himself - and resetting into a campus bed.
This week was one of the latter, thankfully, and so he'd taken his time getting up - he sometimes wondered if Vax noticed that he always slept later on first days after the reset - and he'd finally wandered out to get food. The void was not unfamiliar. It struck him as similar to the week there had been two Delerths. But there was no other Delerth that he could see anyway, and no other him that he could sense, and so while he wasn't quite bold enough to hope for quiet, he was grateful for it as it was existing currently.
He held a cup of their caf like substance in one hand, and the remainder of half a piece of toast in the other as he headed out of the cafeteria and towards the green. He'd let the food and the caffeine settle and then hopefully would feel more or less back to his normal self.
Paul had seen the place before his arrival. The white nothingness had come to him as if in a dream he would, for once, not be able to remember upon waking. Then through his gaze, he had seen the Green, the lush, water-rich, and wild growth standing out in stark contrast to the white void. There had been a girl, grey of hair and green-eyed, looking straight at him as if he was there with her.
It wasn’t the first time he had such visions. Not the first time he had known other planets before arriving there, just based on his keen foresight. He could see through time and space, what he saw almost always coming to pass, so it came as no surprise to him when he woke in a strange bed, his lungs hitching in momentary shock as he drew in a moisture-rich breath.
He went through the motions of orienting himself. Paul’s prescience included being able to assimilate himself with ease, and understanding things he shouldn’t be able to right away. It was like how he had known how to don a stillsuit without help, and had been able to aid his mother in adjusting hers. She must have known then, that he was the Kwisatz Haderach.
Paul met the girl of his vision, Ciri, and took a tour with her. He had changed into some clothes from the theatre so that he could get out of his stillsuit. The t-shirt and pants were loose and baggy on his slender frame. He looked like a slip of a boy, but he was so much more than that.
After parting ways with Ciri, he gravitated toward the Green and sat himself down at the base of one of the first trees leading into the woods. He crossed his legs underneath himself, reaching forward to run his fingers through the tender shoots of grass. It was something he had taken for granted on Caladan. He never would again.
He heard footsteps coming toward him and he turned his attention from the grass to the stranger, blue within blue eyes fixed upon him. The whites of Paul’s eyes were blue as well, an effect of the spice melange of the desert planet of Arrakis. He moved to stand, his motions fluid. “Hello,” he greeted him, his gaze briefly falling on the cup in his hand. It smelled of the beans of Java. He had a cup himself, earlier in the cafeteria. It had been most welcome. “Are you well?” he asked. It was something the Fremen often asked one another, though he spoke it in Galach, or English as it seemed to be known here.
The question took Ben slightly off guard, although he had been around enough cultures and on enough planets to see it as a sort of introductory question.
"Well enough, I've got caf - coffee I guess," he raised the cup as if to emphasize this point. He'd never really felt as if he'd managed to get his mother's skills with diplomacy and he always felt it when he was meeting someone new. But this was someone new so far as Ben could tell. It wasn't someone he remembered seeing around before, and so that meant that as little as Ben knew about Delerth - this young man probably knew even less.
"Are you well?" He returned the question, figuring that if it was how he was greeted, it was polite to turn it back. "I'm Ben."
Paul nodded his understanding. “Caffeine. It is good, I had a cup earlier.” It was jarring to be pulled away from Arrakis to a world like this. Everyone that he had met, passed by, or spotted from a distance had bodies fat with water. Did they not realize how precious that was? They were not taking any measures to preserve it, and he was quick to spring upon the answer as to why: they did not need to. How feral he must look to them, like a dried-out husk.
“I am well,” he replied. “Enjoying the trees and the grass.” Paul reached out, running his fingertips across the rough bark of the trunk of the tree he had been sitting underneath. “They are beautiful.” He turned his attention back to the introductions. “Nice to meet you. I am Paul.”
"Much more welcoming than the freezing snowdrift I arrived in," Ben returned. Thus far it seemed he'd been reset in his room, with the exception of last week where there had been no college, but he was grateful every time, knowing that it would take him a good portion of the day to gather his strength back, and that not every environment allowed for this easily.
"Not as common where you're from?" Ben hazarded a guess. It wasn't entirely unusual where he came from either. Oh, there were plenty of beautiful planets, and he'd been on many of them, but there were equal numbers of Jakkus or Mustafars as well and he'd been on equal numbers of those.
He looked up at the white of the void and frowned at it. It could feel claustrophobic, and the lack of life if he reached beyond the campus always gave him an unsettled feeling. "At least this week there's no dinosaurs."
“I have been hearing about the difficulties that come with this place. Heard a lot of warnings.” Everyone seemed to have something negative to say about it before they told him anything positive. It was strange to him. Even Arrakis, in all of its harshness, held beauty. Even though he had been through much, there had still been good. His thoughts drifted toward Chani, his brow creasing as he felt the momentary shock of something missing.
He was quick to master himself. “No, it’s not. I come from the desert planet Arrakis. It’s difficult to grow anything there without sacrificing so much water.”
Paul had been warned of a creature waiting just outside the Void. Tales like that didn’t frighten him as much as they used to. Not since he had become a worm rider. The sandworms of Arrakis were massive, ancient creatures that could swallow spice harvesters whole.
He had also been told of the dinosaurs, read of them on the network. They did not seem as big as the sandworms, or like they could swallow spice harvesters, but he held back any biting sarcasm. “At least there’s that.” He shrugged. “What do you like to do here? Is there anything people actually like about this place at all?”
"I've only been here a few weeks," Ben shrugged. "When I arrived we were on a planet from my home galaxy, Hoth - cold and very barren and unwelcoming. But we are only a week anywhere and each week seems to have its positives or negatives. So far as I understand it, we return to this void every few weeks, and things can be restful." They had not, so far as Ben had experienced, actually proven restful.
"My friend Rey, she is from a desert planet, Jakku. My Uncle was from a desert planet as well. I've never heard of Arrakis though." So they were probably not from the same galaxy, although that wasn't particularly surprising. Ben didn't think he was from the same galaxy as most of the people here.
The question was a difficult one, and perhaps the thing Ben suspected he liked the most about this place - simply being alive - wasn't something he really wanted to share with a total stranger. He considered back over the few weeks he had been here. "The people are interesting," he said finally. "They come from many different places and some seem to know each other from their worlds, but most of us are strangers that know each other only here. Usually there is some sort of event or party. I picked up some pieces when we were on Hoth and I've been working on building a droid."
“This place visited your home galaxy?” That was interesting. No one had said anything to him about the place they called Derleth arriving on any of their homeworlds. Perhaps it would someday take him back to Arrakis so he could pick up where he left off. It had been an important juncture. He needed to formally crown himself Padishah Emperor and get started on some of his goals, such as terraforming Arrakis. “I haven’t heard of Hoth or Jakku,” he went on. “And no one else seems to have heard of Arrakis or Caladan or Salusa Secondus or anywhere else in the Known Universe.”
The interesting people were something that he could appreciate. He found Ciri to be good company, and even his strange roommate who had thrown a book at his head had some unique things about her and he hoped that they could be friends, at least enough so that they could room together in peace. There were multiple people with mental powers, so he had a little bit more of a sense of belonging than he might otherwise have had. “I think I have made some friends already. There are people with mental powers. Not the same as mine, but some are in a similar vein.”
Paul couldn’t help but be wary about the droid thing, though. “A droid? That sounds dangerous. Tech smarter than a human mind is banned where I come from. I don’t even like this that much.” He held up the device he had been communicating on the network with. “It’s very smart for a thinking machine. You best be careful.”
“The first week I was here,” Ben shook his head. “It’s not been back since, and I don’t get the impression that it happens very frequently. I have heard people mention other places that we have been that they seem to know - which would indicate that it does sometimes happen to go to worlds that we know.”
He glanced over, curious as much as anything, both by the mental powers, and the technology consideration. He knew there were worlds that had strong feelings about droids and their use, but he couldn’t think of anyplace in his galaxy where they would be straight out banned. Threepio would have been less useful on one of those planets.
“What sort of mental powers?” Ben asked curiously, wondering if they would intersect with his own at all. He didn’t assume that it was necessarily the Force, because that didn’t seem to be something that everyone had an understanding of - something that was interesting in and of itself - but still, there were a lot of people with powers.
“There are a few here, Beebee is Rey’s and then there is Baymax in the clinic. He’s not a droid though. I think he would consider himself a robot. Where I come from droids are very common - people have different views on them, but overall as a society there are a lot of them.”
Paul filed away that information for further review. That was for another time when he was not attempting to become familiar with his fellow residents.
“It’s complicated to try to explain,” he answered, about his powers. “I have clairvoyance across time and space. That is how I was able to see flashes of this place before I arrived. Sometimes, my ancestors speak to me through the Other Memory.” Not long before he had been taken to Derleth, he had been in a duel and his ancestors had been screaming at him through his blood to use a word against his opponent. He had refused, out loud, and it had been that distraction that had secured his win.
“I also know how to use the Voice. I could make you give me that caffeine, you would not be able to resist me.” Paul made no move to do such a thing, reverting his eyes back to the tree. “I would be able to tell if you ever lied to me. And perhaps it would be considered more physical, but it’s really up here.” He tapped the side of his head. “I have precise control over every muscle and nerve in my body.” He paused. “You have mental powers too, or you wouldn’t have asked me out of such keen interest, it would have been out of politeness.”
A robot in a medical clinic was an alarming prospect. A society full of them was even worse. “That’s…disconcerting. Where I come from, there are Mentats. Trained to replace the computers, able to analyze large amounts of data in their own minds. I was given Mentat training. It’s better to think for oneself.”
Ben's expression was neutral, considering the description of Clairvoyance, the ability to talk to ancestors. He described it differently than how Ben would describe the Force, but it held similarities too. The ability to see the future, to have a connection with ancestors past, these things were very similar to Ben's experience. As was the ability to compel, and the notion that Paul would be able to compel him broke the expression into a wry lopsided smile.
"I sincerely doubt that," he told him. Not that it was impossible, certainly there was the possibility that there were people stronger than him. But based on the description, it seemed unlikely. "Mental wards were built into my training." For all the good it did sometimes, but that was a different conversation and not one he was about to have with a stranger. He tilted his head, and offered an explanation. "My family has always been strong in the Force. It's a life field between living things, and those who have a strong sensitivity to it can tap into it, manipulate it. People have different views on what that should look like, and those who are sensitive to it have different strengths, but much of what you've described is familiar. And it's nearly impossible to compel a strong Force user, particularly one that's trained, but even untrained you'll receive significant resistance to it."
He took a sip and thought of Baymax. "I think Baymax is possibly the least disconcerting being that you can meet, and I've met a lot of beings over my travels across the galaxy." Ben decided to leave out the week where he'd spent a week in Baymax' body. "Is the mentat training - it does not involve any technology?"
It was so like a man to think himself invincible, superior to others he did not know anything about. At one time, Paul would have done the same, jumping to his own defense, giving into that knee-jerk reaction. He did not, though, not now. It was foolish to think himself immune to Ben’s power, his Force. Paul kept up no shields, and the Voice had been used on him before. His control was as good as a shield, though that did not mean that it couldn’t bend and break. Through acute observation, he could tell that Ben was withholding from him, protecting himself with proclamations of superiority painted within his description of his powers.
He returned his eerie blue-within-blue gaze to Ben. “No ward is impervious.” Paul kept it at that, having no desire to get into a pissing contest with someone on his first day. The Force did sound a lot like the Bene Gesserit, enough to make him think that there was a chance that they could be matched in skill. It was better to let Ben continue to underestimate him. There was power in that, he knew it well. How such a small, thin scrap of a boy could come roaring up out of the desert a Messiah. At any rate, he was not there to make enemies. He had just finished a war.
“No, there is no technology involved in Mentat training. It's entirely mental.” He looked to Ben’s caffeine, then back into his eyes. “Were you coming here for some peace? I can leave you to it.” Speaking of mental training, Ben did seem like he could use a good bit of meditation.
Ben shrugged. He was aware enough, considering the way he’d been haunted enough by Snoke and Palpatine. He also knew what he was capable of - good and bad. But he wasn’t interested in pursuing it. Paul was not the only person here with these powers, but unless he chose to bother Ben, Ben wasn’t looking to take anything over. At best, he just wanted to try to figure out what he looked like when he wasn’t Kylo Ren, when he wasn’t trying to be the perfect Jedi for the next generation.
“Most things can be broken if someone knows the breaking place,” he said finally; something he knew from experience having had at various points in time broken things.
He took a sip of the coffee and looked back. Mental training that allowed that level of memory was interesting. There had been Jedi training techniques that did this, but they’d never been things Ben had taken time to learn. Recall of events was one thing, but he could certainly consider it useful, and he suspected it would make Paul a formidable opponent on its own merits.
“The reset is always a bit jarring. When we have a safe green, a walk is nice. I won’t keep you if you are still exploring the campus.”
“Just so,” Paul agreed. Breaking was a bit of a strong word for it. Most of the time, the Voice wasn’t used to break things, but to bend them just enough. The Reverend Mother had used it to have him kneel before her before administering a brutal test. When he was younger, his mother would ask him to use it on her, compelling her to do simple tasks such as giving him a glass of water. He had never enjoyed it, but he had seen the merits of it when they had been kidnapped and he used the Voice to command one of the men to release his mother.
“I had a tour. Got myself some clothes.” Paul looked down at the baggy borrowed clothing. There was nothing he could find that fit him. “Had the caffeine.” He nodded toward Ben’s cup. “You keep me from nothing. All I want to do now is enjoy the grass and the trees after so long in the desert.”
The lopsided grin slipped back on Ben's face and he glanced up at the trees before turning back to Paul and nodded. "As you should," he returned softly. He'd been on enough desert planets in his lifetime to know that he would not want to be on one permanently and if he did? He'd be glad to see the green again.
"I was going to find a place to sit and drink the rest of ths, you can join me if you want, but it's actually bigger than it looks at first glance," Ben nodded to the trees. He was pretty certain originally it hadn't been. Something about it spoke of growth that had happened much more quickly. "So if you've not wandered woods for a while, which it sounds like you haven't - you should do that at some point."
Paul shot a glance up through the branches of the trees nearest him into the white blankness of the Void overhead. “Someday, I would like to see blue sky again as well,” he mused.
Returning to the conversation at hand, he wasn’t surprised to hear that the wooded area was rather large. He could sense it, and he had seen it in brief flashes before his arrival. “I’ll wander it later, once I have my crysknife with me.” He had received so many warnings about the place that he didn’t think it would be wise to go in unarmed. “I’ll be content to sit with you for a while. Do you meditate?”
“Last week we had blue sky,” Ben told him. “We are not always here.“
Wherever here was. He wondered about the knife, but decided that he’d asked enough questions for the time being. And besides, he glanced over towards Paul with a raised eyebrow, thinking about the conversation he’d had with the other Ben about meditation. He would need to reach out to him later. “Not nearly as well as my Uncle would like, but I know how to be silent when the moment commands it.” A beat. “At least these days. I’ve got the coffee. Let’s sit then.”
“I wonder what next week will hold.” Paul also wondered if he would have any visions of it, or if they would stop.
He nodded. “It’s alright. You don’t have to meditate with me, but I think I could use it. The day has been confusing.” Paul returned to the sitting position he had been in before he had gotten up to introduce himself. “Let’s sit,” he repeated, before slipping into the complex channels of his own mind.