It's just a misunderstanding

[narcissithstic]

CHARACTERS: Kylo Ren, Ahsoka, and Mara Jade
WHERE: the Bearings roof
WHEN: now
SUMMARY: persuasive arguments 101
WARNINGS: NA will update as necessary

[He's there shortly after the mental request for assistance, long legs and even longer strides, through the stairwell rather than the lift to keep from being intercepted along the way. Ahsoka might have given him warning, but that doesn't translate to permission, not when the bottom line is that she intends to tear the lightsaber from his hands.

And likely return it to the desert scavenger that brought it here.

The door's snapped open, shut forcefully by his broad hands rather than waiting for the mechanism to finish. He needs Ahsoka's rage to subside, for her to yield rather than rushing in without thought. Which means every spare second - no matter how minor - matters.]

Are you ready?

[Asked from over his shoulder, palms still braced against cold metal.]

Comments

[snaphiss]

Stop. [Mara walks toward them in quick strides. She deactivates her lightsaber and clips it to her side. This is over.]

[Briefly, Mara considers taking the girl's lightsabers, but it would serve no point. It would just make her come back for more. It's what Mara would do, anyway. She can appreciate stubbornness.]

[Slowly, almost gently, she reaches up to put her hand on Kylo Ren's wrist.] Stop this. It's over.

[narcissithstic]

[Stop? What does she imagine he'll do, Ren wonders. No matter how palpable (and raw) his anger might be, Cathaway has always been the safeguard against unhindered rage: the only time that rule was ever broken was with the loss of his grandfather, and no matter how Ahsoka might provoke him, he has no intention of repeating that turn of events.

In any amount.

So that grim expression tilts downwards towards Mara's fingers across his wrist, already deactivating his saber with the hand that's been left purposefully free. If ever there was a wordless demand to be released, this is his closest attempt at conveying it.]

(Yes. It is.) [Perhaps she'll look back on this in shame. More likely, he imagines she'll think it justified, if not unsuccessful. Either way, he intends to make a point.]

(I knew he gave his saber to you. I -let- you keep it.) [Predictably, that gesture of goodwill is revoked as Ren reaches forward to tear it from her fingertips. Unkindly, painfully, if necessary. He isn't in the mood for anything else.] (But if you're so committed to hunting for what you already possess, fine.)

[His hold on her slackens; she drops to her heels in the second it takes him to throw Anakin's gift over the edge of the Bearings' roof without so much as a second thought.]

[snippycup]

[She knows what's coming before it happens, doesn't bother to fight the pull of the saber from her hands. Already, she is calculating how to respond. Will he push her off, knowing she can recover but risk exposing their operation? Will he break it? Will he pass it to his strange companion and have her leave without giving her the immediate opportunity to pursue?

No, he will throw it off the rooftop, and she's forced to let it fall. Perhaps a kinder option that others that were available to him. She has no reason to be ashamed of a defeat against two Force sensitives -- perhaps at fighting long enough to allow herself to be struck, however minimally. When he drops her, she instinctively springs to the edge with hopes of catching it with the Force just to undermind him -- but there is no chance at that.

She walls him out of her mind when she turns and glares at the pair of them momentarily before her expression is forced calm.]

You "let" me keep it because Anakin didn't want you to have it. And I was mistaken to have doubted his judgement, believing that you might have a chance to change what you've made yourself into. [She says his name firmly, without it sounding like a curse but while accenting it enough to make it clear that she isn't going to speak of him as some strange idea, but as a person.] Last thing anyone in this galaxy needs is for you to disrespect his memory any further than you already have.

[With that, she turns to leave, intent on retrieving what he'd thrown away.]