gonna wash that man right outta my hair.

[snaphiss]

CHARACTERS: Little Jacen narcissithstic & Aunt Mara snaphiss
WHERE: Bearings roof.
WHEN: the asscrack of dawn, d44.
SUMMARY: Mara brings a lightsaber to a knife fight.
WARNINGS: namecalling, hair-pulling, kinkshaming, violence, will update as necessary.

Mara waits. Waiting is what wins battles, wars, everything. She agreed with Thrawn on very few matters, but his methods were ones she could approve of, if only in their abstract strategic brilliance. Rushing in hot was satisfying, but would kill you sooner than it rewarded you. Mara waits.

She knows Kylo Ren, the man who was once Jacen. But even that infant deserved to know the extent of his errors. There could be no alliance between them, if he thought his trespasses were just. There could be no future for him at all, if he truly believed the end of his will was the way forward. Who would want such a walking death?

Mara waits, and she plans. He likes the roof-- often, she can feel him there in the Force. So Mara makes contacts, asks questions, and gets to work. Electromines, the size of her thumb and flat as flimsi, are easily attached and painted the color of the floor. She sets them up around the roof in a general pattern clustering mostly by the sides and entrance, better to block his escape. She only needs him stunned for a moment, two, before she can disappear into darkness. She has an entire childhood of running around in megacities like this; she's more than sure she can evade him.

She carefully rewires the lights to the bearings roof, connecting the switch to a transmitter in her glove. That transmitter, nested with the one that activates the electromines, waits to be activated in the soft fabric of her thumb. Everything lies dormant, waiting.

Once, she could cloak herself entirely in the Force. It's been harder and harder since the Emperor- since the Symbiote. But she tries anyway; she's been meditating for days, doing her utmost to make a wall around herself, a null presence in the Force and the Nest. She can't wait any longer.

Kylo Ren comes here often. She dims the lights, finds a place to hide in shadow, and she waits.

Comments

[snaphiss]

[Despite herself, despite the necessity of the action, her heart still lurches to see Jacen hurt. When she walks over to him, it's not with the angry prowl of a victor. She kneels down next to him, and reaches out with an almost maternal gentleness.]

[Almost maternal. She wouldn't let herself be so openly caring, if she only knew what 'maternal' looked like. She just can't let herself be the master reaching for its pet.]

I've killed stronger men than you. [She says it calmly, with lingering kindness in her voice.] You're strong because you want to be. I'm strong because I have to be. And I've never failed, because I'm not dead.

[She touches his shoulder with gentleness and care.] Remember that.

stop hurting me with tags thx

[narcissithstic]

[His response is guttural. Tensed by spasming muscles as he strains to lift his own hand, fingers clawed as they reach, trembling, for hers. He's an inch or two shy of the mark when he exhales too-sharply between his teeth and falls back.]

You weren't there— [It's not what he wants to say, only what comes out as the numbness starts to fade, leaving his thoughts frustratingly intact.] Why...weren't you there, when he—

—when Luke Skywalker killed him.

[If she thinks herself so cunning, so strong; if she survived the collapse of the Empire long enough to know better, to carry Luke Skywalker's saber - there's only one logical conclusion to draw.]

nah.

[snaphiss]

[Keenly aimed, Kylo Ren's aim is true, and it hits its target better than his blade ever could have. Mara's gone through it a thousand times herself, Why wasn't I there? Why couldn't I protect him? She has a thousand answers, but none are ever sufficient.]

[For the first time, that doesn't cause her the usual anguish. Anger, frustration, yes, those emotions flare through the Force and their bond like surging pulse, but for once, there's no sadness, no mourning for the man.]

[As ever, she forces the emotions down, ignoring them, boxing them up for later. She'll need them some day, but not now. Still, when she speaks, it's strained with the effort of her calm.] Because I was carrying out his will elsewhere. I pick my battles; do you really think I could have stood up against both Skywalkers?

[Maybe, with the Emperor by her side, but he hated direct combat when he could have a champion dance for him. No, they'd all have died.]

[narcissithstic]

[It's not a satisfying answer. But then, he never imagined it would be.

Ren rolls onto his side, away from her gentle grip, his back set to her as he breathes.]

Then pick your battles more carefully this time.

[It's a frigid statement, cold enough to freeze the air between them— and then it does, somehow. When he's upright, on his heels and facing her, ragged at the seams. A mental connection that's so physical he can feel it, the instant it closes around her like a vice. Like the Force - only this time, it costs him nothing. No distant channeling, no pain; he doesn't even notice that his nose bleeds for it.

Ren leans in, voice low.] You can't beat her.

[Neither of them can as they are now. A simple, cutting truth.

And then he retreats— and she's as she was— when he sluggishly moves to retrieve his saber from the far end of the rooftop. No speeches, no seething hatred, just...bone-deep fatigue, the scent of scorched ozone and flesh.]

[snaphiss]

[He moves too fast, so fast it gives her chills. She doesn't like being at anyone's mercy, and being at a loss, being for a moment confused, is essentially the same. A chill runs up her spine as she stands, watching him go.]

[Despite her fear, she has to say it. The reason she's here:] And you can't beat me.

[narcissithstic]

[For that, he stops— just for a moment. It lets in the noise of the city, the hum of a thousand lives so near that either Mara or Ren could reach out and take hold of any single mind in an instant; fledgling hosts, their loneliness, their distress.

The empty space where Anakin Skywalker had once been.]

No, I can't.

[He's lost too much already, and Mara Jade— in spite of every disagreement, every ounce of resentment that might exist between them— is the closest thing to family he has left. Closer than his own had ever dared to be. To best her would mean killing her, spending every ounce of his cruelty and strength rather than holding back.

For now, as long as he remains wholly himself, he won't.

So he leaves.]