#I haven’t read all of the source material for Ben Solo so please forgive my idiocy

[suspiciouslybluemilktea]

The fact that he still dreamt of the fire and brimstone was his greatest kept secret. Behind his closed eyelids he still saw it, lightening striking and ash fluttering to the ground like unnatural snowfall, marking destruction and filling his lungs with something disgusting. His anger had soared to new heights that night as his bitterness left him empty, choking on a feeling of what he could only describe to be abandonment and betrayal. He did not know which was more haunting, the screams of those he grew up with, or the look on his uncle’s face as he raised his weapon to him.

The night Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy burned to the ground was the very last Ben Solo was alive, and what remained of it all now was an ugly wound across his very soul. Like something created by a saber, it became cauterized by the heat, a gaping hole which refused to heal as vital organs were scorched in its path. A bacta tank could do nothing to save him from his past.

Under his new name and allegiance, he channeled this very reoccurring nightmare into a powerful weapon against those who had wronged him. Drowning within the pain rather than attempting to swim was how Kylo Ren operated, and he could see no ability to heal as he allowed himself to be pulled under. Under the First Order, he would learn to reopen this gash over and over again, twisting the knife deeper into himself whenever he got the chance. Where Ben Solo once felt hope and aspiration, Kylo Ren felt a melancholy sense of intense loathing. In a way mostly unclear to him, his anger was a method of mourning, manifesting further as he watched the newest Rebel fighter receive what love and autonomy he was denied. They gave to Rey endlessly.

Kylo Ren knew he was the product of familial failure, and that voice inside of his head telling him to look towards the facts isolated him greatly from others in his youth. The galactic heroes of the century he called his guardians, the legends turned bedtime stories for new generations born, all left him to rot in their own ways. He knew he was a monster created by their faults, and they were all to blame for his very fall from “grace”, or that set path they assigned to him. Growing up, if he had told another soul that their dearest Han, Luke and Leia were far from perfect poster figures, he’d only have been named a liar. A spoiled brat complaining about what gifts the universe had bestowed upon them, his heritage a huge leverage in both training, politics and more. Listening to that small familiar whisper in his ear, the seeds of truth finally flourished under the green light of his uncle’s lightsaber hovering directly above him.

To start, if thinking of them all again, he hated the man he called father, Han Solo. In his selfishness, that bastard craved his old life of crime and could not stay grounded. He found smuggling alongside that Wookiee to be more entertaining than his family, and at the end of the day still had very little in common with his mother besides the fact that they had a kid together. Han Solo would have rather been footloose and fancy free, head in the stars above than to have played the role of husband and father. Growing up, Ben felt it all, his mind nagging him that this disconnection was in fact his reality. He hated his true name now, Solo not even being a real surname. His father never really wanted more than a fling with some pretty princess…and yet this new girl was already so snug under his wing like a kid of his own maybe. Perhaps it’s because he chases the rush of new people excited to know him as an old hero of theirs.

Then there was his mother, one of the most important political figure heads of the century. Not only was she famed for being spectacularly beautiful, but strong willed and strong minded in her fight against the empire. She was the number one thing that swayed his usage of the dark side, and he was aware of what he’d have to do in order to fix that. Sever the ties…and to think no more of her soft hands against his cheeks as she sang him to sleep as a child. She already started their separation all those years ago shipping him off to become a Jedi, without being granted the same choice she had to follow something else instead…love in order to have him. His loud inner dialogue thundered at the thought of her, sorting her out to be indeed a hypocrite. While he practiced so very far from his mother, alone and missing her, Rey received training directly from her.

And as for his uncle Luke? He made up his mind about Ben all too quickly, deciding to kill his nephew placed into his care. He had casted the scales of judgment upon him without holding a call to court, and Kylo Ren hated him most of all, for judging his pull to the dark when Luke lived with the same. In fact, Luke spared Rey when experiencing hers.

And yet…even with this map sprawled out before him, he cannot find it within himself to hate the girl they dote on. All of the rage he directs through his power cannot be channeled at her, and it’s yet another thing that makes him weaker. Kylo Ren supposes he takes pity on Rey, being a small desert planet orphan longing to hold the stars that kept her company in her lonesomeness. In time, her heroes will fail her same as they did him. He will be there when it happens, waiting.