[IC CONTACT]

[photophobic]

You should know where to find me.
But if you leave a message here, I will see it.

Comments

[photophobic]

Considering I never said I would teach you anything, I think we both know that isn't the question you want to ask.

[arithmethodical]

[ She almost disconnects. The problem is she has too many questions. What did he mean, when she could see past recruitment slogans? Why would he take any interest in someone who hates his guts? Why offer what he seemed to be offering?

This is all very new to you, he'd said.

Jess picks up a bolt from her workbench, rolling it between her fingers. Does he mean for her to spell it out? Does he want to humiliate her? She keeps coming back to the way she lost control in the park in Nonah, the way every dark thought of every person in her proximity poured into her head. That can't happen again.

She sets the bolt down, her stomach turning over.

She could be dead in less than a week. She could be possessed by a god, or responsible for the destruction of the multiverse. What's one more potentially terrible mistake? If she dies it won't matter anyway. ]

Will you teach me something.

[photophobic]

We don't have much time, do we. What would you like to know.

[arithmethodical]

[ Suddenly this whole thing feels too easy, but...

There's one thing in particular that keeps happening to her. ]

How to control my mind. How to keep other people out of it. Their thoughts.

[photophobic]

[Right. Because why start with anything simple?]

You've experienced it then. Being under someone else's control.

[arithmethodical]

[ Simple is for casuals.

For a second Jess thinks somehow he knows, that he's already seen her childhood, but she's never even talked to him before. Never been anywhere near him. Besides, he doesn't mean that kind of control.

It feels so wrong to be telling Kylo Ren about any of this. ]

Not exactly. Sort of. I can't keep people out. I keep losing touch with myself. It feels like I'm drowning when it happens, and I

I keep seeing things I shouldn't see. Things no one has a right to see.

I guess it does feel like something else is controlling me.

[photophobic]

[Oh. This, he hadn't expected. There's a pause.]

It's overwhelming, at first. Feeling the Force. The movement of the greater whole you are a part of. It can be difficult. To find the edges of yourself and keep within them.

[arithmethodical]

[ She's relieved, reading that. Knowing that this isn't something strange or unfixable. Relieved and revolted with the emotion. ]

So where do I even start?

[photophobic]

Give up the idea of controlling it.

You don't like what you just read. I know. But you can't control your senses. You already know it, just as you know there is a difference between seeing and looking. Hearing and listening. Which means you already know what you can control.

[arithmethodical]

But

So I just figure it out? Is that what you're saying? Plug my mental ears?

[ She knows it's not what he's saying, not exactly. But she'd hoped. She'd hoped this was something she could control, something she could use. Something she could channel to help people, if she even lived long enough to do it.

She picks up the bolt again, this time walking it between her fingers. Why couldn't this be simple?

She misses flying. She misses the calculations necessary to make things go well, she misses the control she had over her own ship. She feels held hostage by all of this. Everything that's happening, not just her struggles with the Force.

She hates being powerless. Hates when things are outside of her control. Hates it.

She just wants to--

Fly. Flying. ]

It's like a dogfight. You're aware of everything, but you see what's in front of you.

[photophobic]

[He gives her the space to work it out, not replying until there's something to reply to that proves she's grasped something of what he means.]

You focus. On what's relevant to what you want to accomplish. That's all it is. You've been doing it with all the information given to you by your senses since you were born. Now, you have to apply it to this, too. Everything that lies beyond the boundary of your body.

[arithmethodical]

[ Jess realizes then that she really had been hoping for something simple. A quick fix. A way to box this ability up and let it out when required. As though the Force was something that could be boxed up at all.

She's going to have to work at this.

Her stomach gives an unpleasant little flutter.

She's going to have to work at this, if she has a future to do so.

Doctor Strange had said they would find a way. Where there's life, there's hope, and where there's hope, there's Light. That would be the first thing for her to focus on. Finding the Light. ]

I'm guessing this is one of those 'easier said than done' things.

[ Right. Focusing. ]

What happens if I can't? If I lose control again?

[ The again, she didn't mean to add. ]

[photophobic]

What happens if you lose concentration behind the controls of a starfighter.

[arithmethodical]

Ok. Point taken.



So

Do you have any... tips? [ That seems like such a stupid question. ] Any ways to practice keeping your shit together.

[photophobic]

I thought we agreed you wouldn't try further jokes.

[arithmethodical]

I wasn't joking.

Probably I should have been.

[ She's talking to Kylo Ren. She's having a conversation with him, with one of the people responsible for the Hosnian system, responsible for murdering her friends in the Resistance, responsible for the death of Luke Skywalker. She's having a conversation with him about how to live with a power he doesn't do anything but abuse. ]

I shouldn't have done this.

[photophobic]

Have you ever lost your temper. Said something in anger. Ripped out a faulty circuit.

There isn't any easy fix. You will fail. You will lose control. No matter how many tricks or tips I give you, none of them will prevent you from failing. There's no difference between what you are now and what you were before. Only how far you can reach. The size of the blast radius.

[arithmethodical]

[ Well that's... terrifying. Thanks for that, Kylo. She's never thought of herself as dangerous before. ]

I'm not going to hurt anyone. I won't.

[photophobic]

I didn't say you would intend to.

[arithmethodical]

I won't!

[ The bolt on the worktable skitters loudly away from her and drops off the end of the table onto the floor.

She shivers, stays silent long enough that she thinks Kylo may have gone back to bed. ]

A Jedi wouldn't.

[photophobic]

[Did.... did you really just try to get the last word by waiting for Kylo Ren to go to sleep?

As if he would let that fly. Especially when those words turned right back on their sender take on the particular ominous chill of a secret left unspoken. Or the kind of warning that only makes sense on the other side of disaster.]

No. A Jedi wouldn't.

[arithmethodical]

[ N....O.....

And now Jess is well and truly scared. She's no Jedi. So what does that make her? She can't just ignore this. It's not going away. If she pretends it's not there she really could end up hurting someone.

But she's no Jedi. She's not Luke Skywalker. She's just a decent pilot with magnificent engineering skills. ]

What's the point of trying to scare me? I asked you for help.

[ And there it is again: she asked him for help, like a traitor. ]

[photophobic]

Is that what you think I'm doing. At the End of everything. When I could be spending my time doing anything else. When I could be sleeping.

You're trying to scare yourself.
Why else would you come to the monster.

[arithmethodical]

Because I

[ Because she was already scared. Because she's nothing but scared right now, but she still had one thing she could try to control.

She closes her eyes and does what she should have done half a conversation ago. ]

Because I'm an idiot.

[ She disconnects. ]