She doesn't answer that, but her jaw clenches in irritation and then she takes another drink of whiskey because she's so frustrated with herself, for this stupid decision that's led to having to explain herself to Tommy.
"If it was any other weapons it would have been different, but he's trained with these since he was young." She says, and it sounds like an excuse and she hates that too. "The first time we fought with them he'd been shot and he was weak, but he's had time to heal here."
His body is stronger even if he's cut off from the Force and while Rey knows she would have eventually won, she would have been fine, relying on the Force isn't her first instinct. She keeps her staff on her back at all times for a reason.
"Rey--" He stops her with a frown, puts the lightsaber back on the table with some reluctance. He doesn't like other people carrying weapons in his cabin, but in this case he won't mention it.
"You don't have to explain. You don't owe that to me."
He'll have to get used to the idea of Rey with her lightsaber in his room if he expects her to visit because it never leaves her side. Kylo Ren wants it, it's too important to her for reasons that have nothing to do with Kylo Ren at all. Even now having it on the table right in front of her instead of in her possession isn't something Rey can stand. She picks it up immediately, puts it back in its holster at her hip and keeps her hand on it for a moment.
"I know I don't owe you anything, but I needed you to know." She's not entirely sure why, but it might have something to do with the way he had sounded when he first asked her what happened. "He isn't usually- he doesn't want to hurt me. I saw that much in one of his memories. He wants to turn me to his side."
And that's what scares her the most. Fighting him, her friends being hurt by him, Finn and Han in danger, she is afraid of those things if she's honest with herself, but most of all is the dark, cold voice in her head that whispers to her when she's lost control of her rage to just kill Kylo Ren and get it over with.
"Which is why you're a warden and he's an inmate," he says, bluntly, his hands still resting flat on the table. He's never been the sort to hide the difference between the two groups, and he isn't planning to start now.
That's a question she doesn't expect, and Rey looks unsure for a moment as she considers why he's asking. He has nothing to gain either way from her falling to the Dark side or staying with the Light and it can't be concern when they don't each other that well yet.
But they are getting there, aren't they? They've seen parts of each other's lives, he's taken the time to teach her about horses and riding them. She doesn't think a few conversations and shared memories is enough to consider someone a friend, but she'd also only spent a few days with Finn and she absolutely thinks of him as her best friend. Chewbacca, too, became like family very quickly.
Either way, despite not understanding Tommy's motives there's nothing to lose in answering him.
"He knows I don't have any training and that I'm..." she trails off, because this is getting close to boasting and she doesn't want to do that, but what are options when she's trying to tell him the truth? "I'm more powerful than he is. He thinks we're tied together so he wants to be the one to teach me."
The bottom line is that he likes her, and Tommy Shelby doesn't like people very easily. He's used to jaded people, whose pain has made them go hard. But Rey has been hurt, and there's something about her that makes him want to reach and protect her from further hurt.
Which is absurd, of course- he can't. No one can protect anyone else from that. But it might be why he asked her did he hurt you instead of anything else.
But now she's distracted him with so much that he doesn't understand. He finally moves from the kitchen to the table, and sits down heavily, motioning for her to do the same. "I don't understand. You have no training, but you're more powerful?"
She does sit, holding her glass between both hands and resting it on the table while she tries to find the quickest, easiest way to explain something she didn't even know for sure existed until recently.
"In the world that I come from there a handful of people who are connected to something called the Force." As soon as she starts, though, it sounds just as unbelievable as she'd expect. Stories of the Jedi and the Force had been exactly that, just stories, tales from the past that she'd overheard and never really put any stock in. "The best way I can explain it is to say it's... it's kind of like magic. In our fight, Kylo Ren used it to throw me against a tree. He'd... also used it before that, to sort of freeze me in place, and then later to look into my mind."
He puts a pensive hand over his mouth while she speaks, trying to take it all in-- of course he's been here more than long enough not to frown at magic, but this just seems so broad.
"And you can connect to it more strongly," he guesses, still frowning.
She nods, watching his reaction closely and feeling oddly relieved that he just... believes her, with no effort. It's surprisingly comforting.
"I was able to turn his link to my mind back of him and see into his. I don't think I can just do that again." She adds the next part quickly, because mind reading is something she doesn't want to be able to do at all. "I'm still untrained, I was only able to do it that time as a defense mechanism."
"I suppose it's like any skill," he muses, dropping his hand and folding them on his lap. "I'd never considered that. Is there anyone else who could teach you- here, at home?"
"Have you met Luke? He's my teacher here and he will be when I go back home, too." There's a thirty year age difference between the Luke here and the Luke she left behind, but she's already told him a lot of impossible things. She can make it worse another day. "But even if there wasn't anyone to teach me, I'd rather never learn than learn from Kylo Ren."
There's so much disdain in her voice when she says that name, undisguised hate, and she knows that's the path to the Dark Side but honestly Rey can't begin to care. Kylo Ren deserves to be hated and she can find a balance between hating him and not falling far enough to his side to be corrupted.
He has met him, briefly, and so he nods- not that he thought the fellow knew anything like that, he's so unassuming at first sight. But he's very glad for her that she gets someone to help her with something that Tommy can't even begin to understand.
But the hatred and disdain in her voice is so clear that he gets distracted from commenting on Luke, or on their powers. "What did he do that you hate him like that, Rey?"
He doesn't disapprove: but he knows women hate less easily than men do. For her to hate someone like this, he must have done something really worthy of that hatred.
She glances at him, a little surprised by the question before she remembers not everyone knows how horribly Kylo Ren is. He's not much of a threat here, not everyone knows he's responsible for the deaths of thousands of people.
Not everyone knows he came to Jakku and murdered an entire settlement of innocent people just to find a map to Luke Skywalker.
Tommy will want personal, though, the reasons she hates Kylo Ren, and it's easier when he already knows she was left behind as a child.
"I could have left Jakku at any time. I was a pilot, and I even had a ship at one point. I chose to stay there because I believed one day my parents would come back for me. I left because I found a droid- a robot, who had important information, and Kylo Ren's people attacked to get it. When I left, though, I left with someone named Finn. He had met the droid's original owner, so we both decided to get it home to the people the information would help."
She pauses and looks at her drink, debates exactly how wise it is to take another sip when she's already starting to feel it and hasn't ever actually been drunk before. It's probably best to slow down.
"The ship we stole to escape belonged to a man named Han Solo. He's here now too, but he and Luke are both younger than the versions of them I met. When I was captured by Kylo Ren, Finn and Han came to save me." She smiles a little, the expression a little sad but mostly fond. "I'd already escaped my restraints and just had to find a ship when they got there, but they..." Now she looks at Tommy, hoping that he'll get it and searching his face to see if he does. "My parents never came back for me, and I've accepted that they never will. But Finn and Han, they did. They'd only known me a day and a half, but they came for me.
And then Kylo Ren killed Han, and he tried to kill Finn. When I came here he was still in a coma."
And that's why she hates Kylo Ren. What he did to her is terrible, but it's not why she hates him. She can still see Finn laying still in the snow, still see Han's body falling, and she will never forgive Kylo Ren for any of it.
Not in the way anyone from her world would get it, or the way someone who had been abandoned would get it. But he gets what it's like to hate someone, and he knows what it's like to lose. More than that, he understands what it's like to lose people like that, who stuck by you through anything.
He isn't an affectionate man. But his understanding shows in his face- not pity, not fear, not disapproval. He just understands, and it shows, and he nods.
"It sounds to me like he more than deserves your hate," he says, softly.
There's something unusually comforting in that, in the lack of pity that she sees in Tommy's face when she glances up at him. She's always been a strong person, always had to handle all her trouble on her own, so most of the time pity and sympathy because of something she's gone through makes her uncomfortable. She isn't weak, what she's been through is over and she's stronger for it. That's just how you have to see the world when you live one day at a time, and knowing that there's people on this strange ship that understand...
She smiles, just a little, and her shoulders relax again. Her fingers release their death grip on her glass.
"I can't say he doesn't, but I'm supposed to be letting go of those feelings." To find balance, find peace. Hate and anger, wishing that Kylo Ren was dead by her hand, those are all things that will surely lead her down a path she doesn't want to ever step foot on.
"Easier letting to of something when you can't run into it in the halls, though, isn't it?" He agrees that she probably should, like he works hard not to hate the people who thrust the world into war, or the forces that led Grace to do what she did (or Grace herself, but that isn't hate, is it?), but he isn't forced to deal with any of those over here.
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"If it was any other weapons it would have been different, but he's trained with these since he was young." She says, and it sounds like an excuse and she hates that too. "The first time we fought with them he'd been shot and he was weak, but he's had time to heal here."
His body is stronger even if he's cut off from the Force and while Rey knows she would have eventually won, she would have been fine, relying on the Force isn't her first instinct. She keeps her staff on her back at all times for a reason.
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"You don't have to explain. You don't owe that to me."
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"I know I don't owe you anything, but I needed you to know." She's not entirely sure why, but it might have something to do with the way he had sounded when he first asked her what happened. "He isn't usually- he doesn't want to hurt me. I saw that much in one of his memories. He wants to turn me to his side."
And that's what scares her the most. Fighting him, her friends being hurt by him, Finn and Han in danger, she is afraid of those things if she's honest with herself, but most of all is the dark, cold voice in her head that whispers to her when she's lost control of her rage to just kill Kylo Ren and get it over with.
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"How is he trying to sway you, then?"
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But they are getting there, aren't they? They've seen parts of each other's lives, he's taken the time to teach her about horses and riding them. She doesn't think a few conversations and shared memories is enough to consider someone a friend, but she'd also only spent a few days with Finn and she absolutely thinks of him as her best friend. Chewbacca, too, became like family very quickly.
Either way, despite not understanding Tommy's motives there's nothing to lose in answering him.
"He knows I don't have any training and that I'm..." she trails off, because this is getting close to boasting and she doesn't want to do that, but what are options when she's trying to tell him the truth? "I'm more powerful than he is. He thinks we're tied together so he wants to be the one to teach me."
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Which is absurd, of course- he can't. No one can protect anyone else from that. But it might be why he asked her did he hurt you instead of anything else.
But now she's distracted him with so much that he doesn't understand. He finally moves from the kitchen to the table, and sits down heavily, motioning for her to do the same. "I don't understand. You have no training, but you're more powerful?"
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"In the world that I come from there a handful of people who are connected to something called the Force." As soon as she starts, though, it sounds just as unbelievable as she'd expect. Stories of the Jedi and the Force had been exactly that, just stories, tales from the past that she'd overheard and never really put any stock in. "The best way I can explain it is to say it's... it's kind of like magic. In our fight, Kylo Ren used it to throw me against a tree. He'd... also used it before that, to sort of freeze me in place, and then later to look into my mind."
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"And you can connect to it more strongly," he guesses, still frowning.
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"I was able to turn his link to my mind back of him and see into his. I don't think I can just do that again." She adds the next part quickly, because mind reading is something she doesn't want to be able to do at all. "I'm still untrained, I was only able to do it that time as a defense mechanism."
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"Have you met Luke? He's my teacher here and he will be when I go back home, too." There's a thirty year age difference between the Luke here and the Luke she left behind, but she's already told him a lot of impossible things. She can make it worse another day. "But even if there wasn't anyone to teach me, I'd rather never learn than learn from Kylo Ren."
There's so much disdain in her voice when she says that name, undisguised hate, and she knows that's the path to the Dark Side but honestly Rey can't begin to care. Kylo Ren deserves to be hated and she can find a balance between hating him and not falling far enough to his side to be corrupted.
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But the hatred and disdain in her voice is so clear that he gets distracted from commenting on Luke, or on their powers. "What did he do that you hate him like that, Rey?"
He doesn't disapprove: but he knows women hate less easily than men do. For her to hate someone like this, he must have done something really worthy of that hatred.
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Not everyone knows he came to Jakku and murdered an entire settlement of innocent people just to find a map to Luke Skywalker.
Tommy will want personal, though, the reasons she hates Kylo Ren, and it's easier when he already knows she was left behind as a child.
"I could have left Jakku at any time. I was a pilot, and I even had a ship at one point. I chose to stay there because I believed one day my parents would come back for me. I left because I found a droid- a robot, who had important information, and Kylo Ren's people attacked to get it. When I left, though, I left with someone named Finn. He had met the droid's original owner, so we both decided to get it home to the people the information would help."
She pauses and looks at her drink, debates exactly how wise it is to take another sip when she's already starting to feel it and hasn't ever actually been drunk before. It's probably best to slow down.
"The ship we stole to escape belonged to a man named Han Solo. He's here now too, but he and Luke are both younger than the versions of them I met. When I was captured by Kylo Ren, Finn and Han came to save me." She smiles a little, the expression a little sad but mostly fond. "I'd already escaped my restraints and just had to find a ship when they got there, but they..." Now she looks at Tommy, hoping that he'll get it and searching his face to see if he does. "My parents never came back for me, and I've accepted that they never will. But Finn and Han, they did. They'd only known me a day and a half, but they came for me.
And then Kylo Ren killed Han, and he tried to kill Finn. When I came here he was still in a coma."
And that's why she hates Kylo Ren. What he did to her is terrible, but it's not why she hates him. She can still see Finn laying still in the snow, still see Han's body falling, and she will never forgive Kylo Ren for any of it.
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Not in the way anyone from her world would get it, or the way someone who had been abandoned would get it. But he gets what it's like to hate someone, and he knows what it's like to lose. More than that, he understands what it's like to lose people like that, who stuck by you through anything.
He isn't an affectionate man. But his understanding shows in his face- not pity, not fear, not disapproval. He just understands, and it shows, and he nods.
"It sounds to me like he more than deserves your hate," he says, softly.
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She smiles, just a little, and her shoulders relax again. Her fingers release their death grip on her glass.
"I can't say he doesn't, but I'm supposed to be letting go of those feelings." To find balance, find peace. Hate and anger, wishing that Kylo Ren was dead by her hand, those are all things that will surely lead her down a path she doesn't want to ever step foot on.
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