They dressed her from head to toe in garments black as char. Rey's first thought is that she looks like a mourner. It's fitting, she thinks gravely, for what comes next will lead only to the Rebellion's potential demise. She seats herself at the edge of the vanity mirror's bench. When the service droid that's been busying itself with dressing her reaches to style her hair with a slender, metal arm, Rey swats it aside. There's a plethora of bizarre metal tools placed on the vanity's surface, all of them meant for fashionably changing one's appearance, but they're about as foreign as some of the scripture she glanced at when she stole the ancient Jedi texts.

She reaches for a handful of silken hair ties, squishes the luxe fabric between her fingertips, then settles on tying her hair back into three familiar buns running down the base of her skull.

"Do you require anything else, Miss?" asks the Service Droid, its voice a tinny murmur.

"No. Thank you."

Silently, it slips away. A shadow in the corner of the room.

Rey's reflection hardly resembles her. The black robes she now wears only emphasize her pallor. Is she sickly? No, though she wonders for a moment if it's only the image in the mirror that's left her ill. This isn't how things were supposed to go. Not in the slightest.

This isn't going to go the way you think.

She exhales a dry laugh. Luke was right about one thing.

Her reflection almost smirks as a hand scarred from hard labour in the Jakku dessert brushes over her exposed collarbone. The robes are strange, both menacing and beautiful. A cowl-like robe covers almost her entire body, though the garments beneath are more dainty, more regal, exposing vulnerable sections of skin. Her collarbone. Her throat. There are thinner sections of fabric that cut away along her sides, suggesting a ribcage. The cowl hides those fine details while she sits, though when she stands, they're on full-display.

She looks like a legendary queen, something plucked from the pages of a children's story book. 'Here are my weakest places' Rey's reflection could almost scream, 'Behold and know that I am invulnerable. Untouchable.'

Three knocks ring in succession against the boudoir's door. Rey almost jumps, takes to staring down at her worn hands instead.

Impossible to think that just one night ago they ran over Kylo Ren's body. A shiver races down her spine at the memory of what it felt like to have his body pressing against hers, so desperate, so needy. A fluttering awakens in her stomach.

Enough. Now isn't the time for lusty fantasies.

"Come in," she calls.

She watches in the mirror as the boudoir doors come apart, and the Supreme Leader enters. Several Stormtroopers follow him like a pale shadow.

"Are you ready?" He asks her, his voice curt. Orderly. Nothing like the delectable rasp she heard last night.

"I think so."

She rises, both hands sweeping down the front of her robes, smoothing the material. A belt cinches her waist in, reminiscent of the Supreme Leader's own uniform. "How do I look?" Rey tries to muster a smile, hopes that it comes off as genuine.

Kylo Ren's dark eyes rake over her slowly, running over her from head to toe. She wonders if he's savouring the sight. It is the first time he's seen the Empress as he intended, though it certainly isn't the last. His gaze lingers on her bare neck. As if imagining his touch, Rey's own fingers brush against the hollow place between her collarbone.

His brows knit together slightly.

"What is it?" she asks him.

No response.

He changes in the presence of his subordinates. Goes from being Ben—her Ben—to the monster that's hunted her before in her nightmares. She doesn't know what to make of it just yet, only knows that it's dangerous. Even without his helmet, Kylo Ren wears Ben Solo's face as a sort of death mask. And it isn't long until that same mask is looming over her.

Gloved fingers linger over the base of Rey's throat. Her breath hitches.

Kylo Ren takes hold of one of the cowl's folds of fabric between his index and pointer finger, arranges the pliable material so that it rests just beneath her chin. The fabric holds in place at a menacing angle.

From her peripheries, Rey takes a look in the mirror. Frowns.

"There's a bruise," he whispers so quietly she almost doesn't hear him.

At that, her face twists with confusion. A question dies in her throat as she recalls the feeling of his mouth against her neck, sucking and biting until she couldn't help but whimper against the pain, the pleasure.

"Oh," she manages out.

The corner of his lip quirks, patronizing. She almost thinks to bite it.

He holds a hand out for her to take. "Come, Rey."

Will she always despise how gentle his hand feels in hers?

The broadcast plays out across the galaxy, reaching as far as the Resistance base on Crait with ease. What remains of the Resistance watches in silent. Their General, Leia Organa, sits pensively in the thick of it all— watching via holoscreen as the Chandrillan cityscape gives way to a scene set amidst a sea of First Order personnel.

The past few days haven't been easy. With no word from Rey, many within the Resistance have assumed that both she and Kylo Ren perished on-board the Supremacy. But Leia knows that this isn't true. She could feel that her son was alive the moment they arrived on the mining planet. And now, for the first time in a long time, she sees him.

Ben's grown remarkably. He's taller now— taller than Han ever was. In another life, a better life, she can almost imagine the two of them teasing one another over the fact. Would Ben have to stoop to sit comfortably in the Falcon? He always did want to pilot the damned thing…

Tears burn in Leia's eyes. So many questions run through her mind. Is his hair still soft? Was the injury that lead to the marring of his face impossibly painful? Does he loathe her for what he has become? She certainly does.

Kylo Ren doesn't smile. Not when he addresses his viewership. Not even when he announces his rule.

The only familiar thing about him is the intensity of his eyes. They always glistened when he was full of passion, or powerful emotions. She thinks for a moment of Ben as a little boy sneaking into her bed, those dark eyes gleaming as he recounted a night terror. Ben Solo's worst nightmares were the ones where she and Han left him. Was that a premonition? She isn't sure.

She forces herself to look away from the broadcast. If anything were to have the power to kill her, it's this.

"General," comes Poe's voice, cutting through the otherwise silent room.

"Not now, Poe," she says.

"But look at that," says Finn now, pointing urgently to the screen.

And that's when they all see her approach and station herself next to Kylo Ren. He's seated at a two-throne dais, face impassive. Almost bored. When Rey appears she keeps her back straight and her chin high. Her dark robes suggest nothing short of a change in allegiances. A turning to the dark side.

She takes the throne next to Kylo Ren's without a word to the Galaxy watching her.

"No, no that's impossible," Finn turns to Leia, shaking his head. "This can't be right. You said she went to Luke."

The room erupts into chaos. Leia can barely think over the commotion. She knows only what her son has set out to do: to prove that he is inevitable, that the dark side is newly revived. He has sought only to crush their hope

"This is the girl we've been worried about?" Poe says, arms crossing over his chest. The words are nothing short of scathing. "A Traitor?"

"Rey's not a traitor," Finn snaps, voice sharp. "She wouldn't do this. There has to be an explanation."

"Oh really, an explanation? Because it looks like she's standing with the First Order. And last I recall, they shot down more than half of our transports, and have been trying to wipe us out."

Finn's nostrils flare with agitation. "You don't know her like I do."

Poe rolls his eyes.

"And how long did you know her, Finn? All of three days? Who's to say she didn't slaughter Luke Skywalker and then join the First Order? Maybe this was her plan all—"

"That's enough."

Leia is surprised they even hear her.

She approaches the screen and watches Kylo Ren announce his dominion over the galaxy. But the Resistance general notices the way Rey's jaw tightens, how her face is almost deathly pale when General Hux declares this to be the dawn of a new age for the First Order.

"Rey doesn't want this," Leia's voice is a defeated rasp. She sees in that girl the same fire she saw in her own brother so many years ago. "What she's doing is something else."

Blood rushes through Leia's ears, a roar loud enough to silence Poe's incredulous protests. No, Leia decides, Rey is no prisoner, nor is she a traitor. She's there because she has to be—she didn't willingly submit to this farce for no reason. It's impossible.

But a voice of doubt creeps up in the back of her mind. After all, Leia never imagined that her own son might turn to the dark side and declare himself Heir to the Stars.

"What if she's a hostage?" Finn's suggestion cuts through the chaos.

Poe's eyes are distant.

"Then she's as good as dead already."

"We have to rescue her," says Rose Tico, swiping a hand across the holo screen so that it enlarges both Ren and Rey's figures. "She's one of our own. We can't leave her behind."

Poe's lip curls. "The First Order would annihilate us. Our numbers are far and few. We are in no position to go on a rescue mission."

Leia knows what they have to do, though she doubts that they will have the strength or numbers to do it. Poe is right. The Resistance is weakened beyond compare. Just returning it to its previous state will be an impossible task. A fool's errand.

"Rey is our only hope," Leia tells them, clasping both hands tightly together. As if doing so will keep the world from falling apart all around her.

"So we'll rescue her?" Finn asks, hopeful as ever.

Leia reaches for the holoscreen controls and turns it off. "There is still much for me to consider first." Even with the broadcast gone she still sees it, clear as day in her mind's eyes: her son and Rey, the First Order's Supreme Leaders. The Resistance's fated enemies.

And still, she hopes that she might save them.