Let the Past Die [Solo x Trish]

[Trish the Nugg Queen]

Rey sighed heavily as she set down her staff and the day's earnings, a big heavy burlap sack full of food. Scavenging was hot, dirty, dangerous work, and it seemed to pay less well with each passing year, but there was no shortage of it to be done out here in Jakkenburg. Whatever importance the Weltreich thought this heap of dirt held, they'd left a ton of their finely-crafted arms and armour behind when they'd abandoned it, and the folks in town paid enough for it for her to survive on. Regardless of anything else, this was really the only life she knew.

She sat down exhausted, pulling her scarf down and brushing away what dirt she could from her face before grabbing some bread out of her sack to eat. It was stale and hard, painfully dry going down her throat, but clean drinking water was more precious than bread out here, and she didn't have enough spare to help the bread go down easier and make it more pleasant to eat. Maybe if she came across some especially valuable salvage, something infused with magic, she could barter it for decent water, but a find like that was incredibly rare. So for now, she'd just have to content herself with old bread.

Once, long ago, this land-dromon had been a wonder of military technology, a fusion of magic and engineering that Rey couldn't even begin to comprehend. A heavy walnut-wood frame reinforced with panels of fine steel, pulled along by six horses on the inside of the armour casing, with crossbow ports in the sides and a spout of flame at the front... How the Rebels had ever managed to fight this thing, she didn't know. After so many years of neglect, however, it was little more than a toppled hunk of rust. It served her well as shelter, these days. It provided enough protection from the elements, even if it wasn't much of a home.

This was her life, the life of a nobody in the vast stretches of the realm under the control of the Erstebestellung. There was no escaping this life, and no point in trying anyway.

@Solo

 

[Solo]

Word traveled quickly from kingdom to kingdom, and though the Knights of Ren had made their home in Musbereich, on the outskirts of habitable land, surrounded by scorched trees that never seemed to regrow and miles and miles of barren land, they were no exception. News poured in from all corners of the world, from reports of a Rebel uprising in Dakkar to the successful construction of the Erstebestellung's newest training facility, but none interested the leader of the Knights more than the rumor of a scavenger in Jakkenberg who always somehow knew exactly where to go, exactly what to look for, to ensure she never went hungry. As soon as he'd been informed of her existence, the dots were connected; the faint pull he'd felt, the disturbance in the Macht, was leading him to her.​

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Kylo had never been one to wait patiently.​

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That night, he had ordered his horse to be prepared, laden in the same armor he donned, the giant black stallion standing tall adorned in a matching color, the metal blending with its flesh to create an otherworldly appearance, as though the beast had been engineered for war rather than simply been outfitted for it. Astride it with one quick swing of his long legs, the commander of the Knights of Ren grasped the reins, slamming the plate of his helmet shut as a heavy kick spurred his mount into action. The castle disappeared behind him, charred earth giving way to the dusty stretches of Korribach, the wastelands of the city of Narschaden, the forests of Tachkönnen - where he stopped once to rest, and to strip himself of his heavy armor, packing it into his saddlebag in favor of a lighter, leather-based protective gear, still in black - and finally, finally the deserts of Jakkenberg.​

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It was a lawless place, with death touching it at every turn, with men making money off the poor and the poor struggling to put food in their mouths, but places such as that worked in his favor. For the price of a few gold coins, information was offered freely, and Kylo sat and sipped casually at a stale ale while those surrounding the heart of the settlement shot dirty looks his way for allowing his horse to dunk its head in the town water supply. Money talked, though, and he knew it - there was no shortage of it, not with the Knights' roots in the Palpatine dynasty - so once he'd had his fill, he slammed the mug on the counter and led his horse away, this time steering it further into the dunes.​

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The sun had just begun to set when he had all but exhausted the tavern man's directions, but as he rounded over the final dune that had been described to him, he found he needed no further words to heed. The Macht pulled him in the correct direction, horse trotting dutifully over an incline, and as the odd felled structure she'd been said to use as a respite came into view, he dismounted and dropped the reins, leaving the horse to wait for him a safe distance away. It would come when called, he had no doubt in that, but he couldn't risk the animal's heavy footsteps giving away his presence. Approaching the structure, boots feather-light and aided by his magic in their undetectability, he paced once, twice, as he attempted to ferret out her position inside. There was only one entrance, so instead of bursting in and taking away his element of surprise, he poised and waited, perched to pounce at the first sign of movement.​