Kylo Ren isn't fool enough to believe that her capture was a happy accident. He didn't believe it was good fortune, and he believed least of all that it had anything to do with the reconnaissance skills of Hux's half-wit stormtroopers. If they have The Girl Called Rey in custody, it is because she meant for it to happen. It was because she had a plan and this was a step in executing it.

He could feel rather than see the leering smirks on the stormtrooper's faces when he had ordered she be taken to his personal chambers for questioning, but he cared little for that. Of course they were so base as to think his keeping her in his rooms had anything to do with some physical want. The truth, of course, is that he had no mind to let her out of his sight this time. He'd not more than glanced the other direction before those idiot bucketheads had armed and released her when last he had her.

Not this time.

He stopped in front of the great door that would lead him to Snoke. He was anxious to see the girl with his own two eyes, but this summons had come almost the instant after news of her capture had been brought to him. Ren thought he knew what to expect from his master, and he steeled himself for it. He held up a hand and swiped the door open.

The heat of Snoke's Great Room was always more oppressive than Kylo Ren anticipated. The room looked cold enough, but heat licked up the insides of his mask the instant he crossed the threshold. Mustafar was an unforgiving and harsh planet, and the First Order base managed to shield its inhabitants from the noxious ashen air and broiling heat. But Snoke seemed to enjoy the hot, keeping this room so one could scarcely breathe.

A fine sweat beaded on Ren's forehead, trickled annoyingly into his eyes where he couldn't reach while masked. He couldn't help but think that this discomfort was precisely the point of the stifling temperature.

"I understand that the girl has been captured."

The droning voice carried through the dry air like billowing smoke from a fire. Kylo Ren approached the dais on which his master sat, following that sooty sound. The Supreme Leader was not nearly as massive in stature as his hologram on Starkiller would have one believe, but in the flesh, his presence was tenfold potent. The absolute power that emanated off of him, shriveled husk of a creature that he was, was staggering. It humbled Ren every time he was near enough to feel it, to recognize that undiluted Darkness that rippled from his master in intoxicating waves.

It ignited a robust surge of outright jealousy in him, to sense the confidence in which his master wielded this power. How doubtlessly Snoke inhabited the Dark Side.

"Yes, Supreme Leader. She is being held in my quarters now."

Ren was close enough to see the slight shift in the Supreme Leader's craggy expression, and he suddenly felt like he had said the wrong thing.

"You quarters?" Snoke intoned. "An interesting choice for you, Kylo Ren."

Ren felt the sweat bead more heavily on his brow at his master's implication.

"I would expect such crudeness from General Hux, but you, I thought…" His master's great voice trailed off, though not without intent. The Supreme Leader did not abandon his words lightly, and neither did he speak without careful thought behind each syllable.

"Forgive me, master. I have the girl sequestered there out of simple mistrust of Hux's men's capability to secure a prisoner so powerful as her. You remember what happened last time she-"

There was a searing, piercing pain that bloomed behind the bridge of his nose, cutting Ren's words short.

"I do not need reminding of her previous escape." Snoke's words were cool though biting. A phantom finger seemed to brush over the scar cleaving Ren's face beneath his mask. "And neither do you."

"Forgive me," Ren said again before falling silent. He stared hard at the stone floor.

"You know what must be done with the girl," Snoke continued after a heavy moment of quiet. "You know, and yet you hesitate." A sound that might be a laugh from a creature with a sense of humor rattled from Snoke. "You want me to tell you to do it, you weak thing."

Shame flared over Ren's scalp. Every encouragement he had known from Snoke had been seasoned with humbling derision, from the first moment of his surrender to the Supreme Leader. But since the destruction of Starkiller at the hands of Han Solo and the blasted Resistance, this derision was no longer a footnote but a bullet point. Ren deserved no better than the scathing reproach of his master, but it flayed the meat from his bones all the same.

"The girl must die," Ren said, his voice too loud through the modulator of his mask. The crackle of it sounded like snapping kindling in the fire that was the Great Room. "I will see to her execution personally."

A humming sound of perverse pleasure wafted from where Snoke sat and Ren dared to raise his gaze from the floor.

"Very good. You will extract what you can from her, of course. She is bound to be useful for some information. But do not waste your energy on her, Kylo Ren. I will not risk your compassion for her twisting the path on which I have set you. She will not best you again."

Ren regretted looking up to meet the gaze of Snoke for the ridicule he found there.

The film of sweat on his body had begun to dry in the cool air of the antechamber that led to his rooms. He wavered before opening the door to his quarters, but he wasn't entirely certain as to why. Snoke's cool insouciance over the fate of the girl was nothing Ren hadn't experienced before. Would that he could always be so blasé about the deaths of others. And the Supreme Leader's mockery of Ren's past weakness was not unexpected or unearned.

But something was keeping him from opening the door to the room that held the Scavenger. Perhaps it was the anticlimactic end to his year-long pursuit of her-she was captured in an unrelated mission off-world and would likely fall to his lightsaber once he'd gleaned what information he could from her.

Such was a paltry way to end what had, in the beginning, seemed to be a worthy divertissement, but the time for naive offers of tutelage in the snow of a dying world was passed. It would seem the girl was not meant for such greatness as he had imagined.

He swiped the door open with a decided air of indifference.

Once the sitting room of his quarters was visible to him, a barrage of startling images assaulted him in rapid succession. The room was a wreck, for one, with items from the shelves scattered and broken along the floor. The next was that the girl appeared to be strung up from the ceiling instead of bound to an interrogation chair as expected. This was probably partially how the room had become so thoroughly ransacked: she was swinging from the her chains and kicking wildly at any solid surface her unbound feet encountered. The last realization that occurred to him before he stilled her flailing body with a surge of the Force was that she was very nearly nude.

Her face was livid and her breaths were coming in ragged pants. Her eyes focused on him in pure ire as he took in the scene with a keener eye.

She had been bound by the wrists to a long chain suspended from his ceiling. The dirty footprint smudges on the brushed durasteel ceiling suggested that she had managed to invert herself once free of supervision and had tried to yank the chain from the ceiling. Failing that, she had apparently taken to trying to either kick down something to use to free or defend herself with from his shelves, or had dissolved into panicked thrashing at her realization of her captivity.

Or she wanted to supremely piss Kylo Ren off.

She was still now, her back bowed and her body not quite limp at the end of her chain from his Forcing her still. She was stretched to her full extent, her toes only just curling on the floor.

He eased his hold on her when he noticed the crumpled pile of rags now scattered along the floor. She hadn't been captured in her chest band and underwear.

She had been stripped.

He turned his back on her, a flush that had nothing to do with want flaming up his neck to ring in his ears. The wide expanses of her naked skin burned into his thoughts though he willed them away. Utter fury was close on these images' heels.

Without thinking, he reached to the release mechanism of his mask and pulled it from his head. The rush of cool air to his damp scalp centered him for the barest of moments so he might be able to speak.

"I will release you, and you will remain calm."

She didn't answer him, so he turned back to face her.

The girl's face was set in defiance and he forced himself to notice only that. The hate and purest anger that burned in those eyes. He spoke again.

"I will release you, and you will remain calm."

He did not try to manipulate her with some sort of mind trick. He wanted nothing to do with her mind at the moment, and would spare no energy for its handling. If she would not listen to him, he knew he could overpower her bodily easily enough.

Ren eased his grasp on her until her body hung more freely from the chain and he waited until her feet were securely under her before waving the manacles at her wrists free.

She fell lightly to the flats of her feet and raised her hands as if ready to spar. She looked wild in nothing but her underthings, filthy and bloody from her struggles since being captured. Harder since he had last seen her. He held her gaze for another long moment before pulling the heavy black cloak from his shoulders.

She tensed, her hands flexing a fraction and her weight shifting to the balls of her feet.

He threw the cloak to her.

"Cover yourself."

She fumbled with the cloak in her arms, her steely look morphing to startled confusion.

"The stormtroopers," he demanded as she struggled with the mass of black fabric in her hands. "Did they strip you down like this?"

Her mouth was still a tight line as she slowly started to wrap the cloak about her, her look that of utter distrust.

"Answer me, girl!"

This roused her and that stiffness returned to her posture as she spoke for the the first time. "They did."

He nodded curtly, needing little confirmation beyond this. He remembered the shift in the demeanor of two stormtroopers in particular, and he knew without a doubt that they were responsible for this disgusting scene in his sitting room.

"Did they take any other liberties?"

She was wrapped in the cloak fully now, the excess fabric pooling on the floor at her feet. The white tips of her fingers peeked out the front of it as she clutched it closed around her. Her brows knitted at his question.

He gesture vaguely at her body, and her confused expression uncoiled.

"No."

He nodded again. "The better for them. They will die a quick death for this; anything further would require a more lengthy punishment."

Her mouth dropped open and her confused expression returned. "You're going to kill them?"

He took a moment to recognize how odd this whole affair had been thus far, how wholly different he thought his next meeting with the girl would be. "Well, not me personally, no. Such things are beneath my rank. But they will die."

Her head shook in bewilderment-a small but powerful gesture.

"You'd have me spare them? The imbeciles who strung you up like a butcher strings up a carcass to bleed?"

"I-I…" Her head continued to shake, and her grip on the robe loosened to reveal one tanned shoulder. This exposure of her skin jolted him and he stood straighter.

"They are simple creatures. They are not worth your...compassion."

She fell still again, her eyes downcast. He took notice of the bruises blooming beneath the skin of her cheek then, the raw scrapes on her neck from being stripped against her will. Her hair was matted with blood and fell in haggard clumps from her mostly fallen buns.

Without much thought, he said, "You're filthy."

Her eyes shot up at him again, angry and hard. He was surprised at how quickly she fell to anger, had been surprised by this before. Such violent shifts in mood weren't ideal for a Jedi in training; this he knew personally.

"The 'fresher is through there," he motioned. "You should clean yourself up." He considered her for a moment, then the trashed room. His few belongings scattered along the floor-odd bits of mechanical pieces, little things he had built to steady his mind when he felt most torn, odd artifacts he had picked up from planets long destroyed. Many were broken or streaked with her blood, but he found that he didn't much care. "Take as long as you like," he continued when he brought his gaze back to hers. "What comes next won't be enjoyable."

She tugged the cloak closer around her slight body and she backed a step away from him.

"If my admission that those that disgraced you like this are soon to be dead wasn't enough to quell you, perhaps you, too, are a simple creature." He speared a hand through his hair, and watched as she took great notice of this gesture. "I have no desire to fuck you," he finished slowly, deliberately.

He pointed again at the door to the 'fresher. "Go. Stop bleeding on my floor."

She looked at him for a moment longer, and he thought again how queer this all was. Wondered at his insistence that she wash herself, and take her time doing so, before he extracted the information she undoubtedly carried with her. The door clicked quietly shut behind her as she scurried away to the 'fresher and he saw that she left bloody footprints in her wake.

He looked again at the mess she had made of his quarters. A small smile tugged at his lips, slow and stiff from disuse, and he scrubbed his hand over his mouth in frustration. He stalked to the panel at the far wall to summon a service droid to take care of this mess while the girl was indisposed. He looked down, nudging a scrap of fabric that used to be her clothes with the toe of his boot, and thought of interrogating her in nothing but his cloak. He shook the thought from his head and sent an order through for a change of clothes for her as well.

Ren glanced toward the door to the 'fresher. She was being oddly quiet. Though he had told her to take as long as she wanted, he hadn't meant for her to simply hide away in there for the rest of the night. Or, more foolishly, try to escape.

He strode purposefully to the door but stopped himself just before swiping the door open.

She had had enough of that kind of humiliation for one day.

He rapped a leather-clad knuckle sharply against the door and waited. When he didn't hear anything, he knocked again.

There was another long moment of silence in which Ren considered just opening the door, her privacy be damned, when a small voice answered from the other side: "Come in."

There was a feeling of relief that she hadn't done anything stupid while alone in the 'fresher that pulsed through him, followed quickly by frustration at his own stupidity for letting that be a possibility. He wanted her in his chambers so he could keep an eye on her, and the first thing he had done was send her to a room alone. There were no malleable stormtroopers or spare weaponry in his 'fresher, but the point stood.

He opened the door and saw her standing, still wrapped in his cloak, in the middle of the small room. A quick look around revealed that she hadn't attempted anything obvious in the way of escape, but he also saw that her underthings were neatly folded and stacked on the edge of the sink. Heat pricked the tips of his ears and he looked back to the girl.

"Is there a problem?"

She tipped up her chin. She worked so hard to look strong, to hold tight to that damnable defiance, even when standing in his 'fresher with nothing protecting her but his own robe. Something about this, about all of this, tugged again at the corners of his mouth, willing a smile for which he had no use. It was very irritating.

"I don't know how to turn it on," she said, her chin still lifted. As if admitting to being ignorant of the controls of a shower were not a laughable indignity.

"The shower? The controls are-"

"No," she cut in. She fumbled under his cloak for a moment, as if trying to extract a hand without revealing any other parts of her body. She finally settled for letting the cloak drop down over a shoulder again and pulled out a long, finely muscled arm. "The…" she gestured. "The bath."

Ren looked to the large, deep, square bathtub at which her steady finger was pointing, and realization dawned. "You want to take a bath?"

Her mouth tightened and Ren noticed that the skin around her cuts and bruises on her face had grown a shade more livid and red. "I've not had one before." Her voice was strong, devoid of shame.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You have never had a bath?"

The redness of her face intensified as she blew out a frustrated huff of air. "I've had a bath before! Just not...a hot one. In a proper tub." She was quiet for a moment more, and when she spoke again, that impatient spike to her words was dulled again. "I think I am going to die soon; I think that you are going to kill me, so I want to have a hot bath before I do."

Ren felt her words like a blaster hit, sharp in his gut. His inclinations to smile at her pride and defiance wiped from him as he considered her cold acceptance of her own death. While not entirely glad to see the girl again, he was intrigued by her presence and not a little anxious to learn more about the last year of her life. Her statement also gave him momentary pause, as he had been very sure that she was not here on the First Order base by accident. She straightened her shoulders and pulled her naked arm back into the cloak, and the doubt vanished.

Anyone who could face him in so pitiful a state as this and still find the wherewithal to stare him boldly in the face, to announce their intention of a small comfort before dying, was not the sort to be captured so easily.

He didn't believe it, and he was going to find out why.

Not taking his eyes from her, he used his teeth to tug his glove from his right hand. She did lower her gaze then, only for a moment, before looking up again, her mouth set in a tighter line than before.

"The taps are controlled by this sensor," he said as he bent and tapped two fingers on an, admittedly discreet, black pad along the edge of the tub. Water poured from the elongated faucet in a small waterfall. "You adjust the temperature like this."

He dragged his fingers across the pad and steam immediately rose from the rush of water.

"I assume you can work out the stopper at the bottom," he added.

"I'll manage," she bit out, her annoyance clipping her voice once again.

Straightening back to his full height, he began to tug his glove back on again. "I'm going to leave the door cracked so I can hear if you have anymore...difficulties."

"You're too kind," she replied in that same sarcastic tone that had listed the specs of a BB unit the first time she was his...guest. His scalp itched at the recollection, and he left her to her bath. Once the door was mostly closed and he had turned his back on the room, he heard the faint disturbance of water as she climbed into the bath.

He suddenly wanted to be nowhere near this girl and the small pleasures she took in her last moments.

The service droid had arrived while he was attending to her and Ren was please to see that the room was neat again, if lacking in items on the shelves. He took a seat farthest from the door to the 'fresher and tried to not hear the small splashing noises coming from the crack in the door.

This is not how he imagined their next meeting, he thought again. The word compassion flitted across his mind once more, and he inwardly cringed to think what Snoke would have to say of his treatment of the prisoner thus far. Would his master have approved of his leaving her strung to his ceiling, nearly naked and struggling for escape?

Probably more than he would of his offering her his own clothes for cover and a hot bath.

But forcing the girl into anything had proven a disastrous tactic in the past, he reasoned. It was not out of compassion that he was...civil to her. It was an effort to get what he needed from her in the least destructive way possible. His hand drifted to the scar on his face, the hard welt of skin roping over the line of his jaw noticeable even through his leather gloves.

A particularly loud splash sounded from the 'fresher followed by a warbling, humming refrain from a song Ren had never heard before. He scrubbed his hands over his face before slapping them down onto the arms of his chair. Singing in the bath was too much.

He stalked over to the door and the noises inside stopped abruptly. He opened his mouth to command her to stop humming, to hurry things along. But her soft song started again and he found that he couldn't voice the order. He went instead to the panel on the wall and typed in an order for food for the girl. His finger hesitated on the choice of basic rations, bland proteins and cold energy cubes. Her song changed to something higher and lilting, and he chose instead a hot meal that he most favored.

Once the order had been sent through and confirmed, he smashed the screen with a punishing blow of his fist.