driftfleet | Red Fishies

"I can't believe I'm trusting you on this," he said as he took a careful drink. It could have been worse and he even took another drink before setting the cup down once more.

"Everything here is technically enemy territory, Ren," Hux pointed out with a thoughtful frown.

"So you can't sense my emotions or thoughts by other means yet" He supposed he should be relieved but it also meant that they still were at more of a disadvantage.

Ren looked a little disappointed that Hux didn't take to his concoction. More sugar, perhaps? Too much sugar? But he was equally disappointed in his lack of progress with the Force, if not moreso,

"I've tried meditating, but nothing's come back." He sighed. "Which means you need to tell me what's going on. Because I doubt you're just here because you miss my pleasant company."

"Your pleasant company and this...concoction," he added as he took another drink. If this was spiked with anything he found he just didn't care at the moment.

"FN-2187 decided to confront me. He apparently is insisting that he wants to be called Finn now. Oh, and he's training with the Jedi now." He tried to keep his voice calm but it didn't take the Force to hear the undercut of anger in his tone.

Ren knew of the shift in allegiance, but training with the Jedi was news. Was FN-2187 actually Force sensitive? Was that the awakening the Supreme Leader had been pointing him to, and not the scavenger girl?

"I thought there was a truce."

Which roughly translated to, 'You made me stand down. Why didn't they?'

"Are you hurt?"

"There is and it's still in effect for the time being. I don't want you charging in there until you have use of the Force and can snap FN-2187's neck with a satisfying crack. After, of course, you rip his mind to shreds."

The thought made him smirk as he drained the cup. He would make sure to be there for that moment. It was a pity he had had to wait outside while Ren was torturing the pilot, he liked seeing Ren at work sometimes.

He shook his head. "No. He hit me in the stomach but it's hardly the worst thing I've endured," he assured him. "I'm not going to run to Kenobi to tattle but we will wait for the right time to deal with them."

He wanted to crack the traitor's skull and tear his mind to pieces. But Hux was right - if he charged in now, without the Force to amplify his strength, it would be a dead giveaway. Until then, he was all bark and no bite.

Frankly, it was embarrassing.

And so was the footage he obtained courtesy of a certain Asguardian that Hux didn't like.

"I did learn one thing." He offered. "There's footage of me waking up in the medbay, fighting the droids. In that fight, I was using the Force. When I woke up in the closet, that's when it was gone."

"We're going to have to hope that footage convinces them you still retain those abilities." Hux pushed the now empty cup away with a frown. He didn't like this uncertainty.

"You know I don't pretend to understand how the Force works but meditating is most likely going to be the best thing you can do for the moment," he said after a moment. "Though I did learn something interesting-" he paused as he retrieved a small red flower from the pocket of his coat, holding it between two fingers. "This was grown using the Force- I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't seen it myself."

"It should." If, of course, the week of confinement that followed didn't change their minds. He glanced over at the door again before adding. "But it does prove one thing. I had my connection to the Force when I got here. Something the droids did in that medbay changed that."

The flower was a curious thing. Ren's surprised expression proved he didn't know you could grow things using the Force either.

"Because otherwise, it would be far to easy to just reach out a hand and destroy it using the Force too." he insisted, covering up his own ignorance on a subject he should have been the expert on. He even made the gesture, but had no will behind it.

But the more he thought about it, the more it intrigued him - using the Force to manipulate another living thing was right up his alley. Or at least, it was.

"Who made it?"

"It was most likely the Atroma I told you about. Let's home that either you're able to reconnect with the Force or they'll return it to you soon."

Hux watched Ren's expression, curious to as to what he thought but it seemed that he didn't know this was possible. The flower was laid on the table so if Ren wanted to look at it he could.

"Barriss Offee. She can also use the Force to heal injuries," he explained as he leaned forward, elbows resting on the table and hands clasped together.

It likely went without saying, but...

"If she can manipulate that... maybe she can also manipulate the living Force inside me..."

"If it doesn't return within two weeks I'll speak to her. Until then, the less people who know the better. She is the most trustworthy of anyone who isn't from the First Order here, however." And that, truly, was significant. However, given her convictions, the discussions they had, and things they had worked together on he was fairly confident in that.

"I'm fairly certain that if she had survived Order 66 and the Purge that she would have been an inquisitor."

"I know. I know..." He sighed. "It's not easy to find a place to meditate without being watched, though. And on top of that, I want to know what those robots actually DO to us..."

When he finally got around to finding the cargo bay, it was being used for target practice. (A potential ally, he hoped.) And he hadn't found anyone on this ship with any real medical expertise. Otherwise, all that fainting and throwing up in Hux's quarters likely wouldn't have happened.

"I don't remember any droids there during my stay. Perhaps you annoyed the Atroma by destroying their medical droids. If so, I can understand considering the property damage you inflicted on my star destroyer over the last five years," he remarked, raising his eyebrows.

"As for meditation, there are some rooms on the Iskaulit but they aren't entirely private but work well enough when necessary."

"I destroyed plenty of your medical droids. You never blocked my connection to the Force." And he said 'blocked' not 'severed,' because the former meant that it was only temporary.

"Large enough for kata? Moving meditation?"

"I've never been able to block you, it's not like ysalamri are common to just pick up anywhere." He had certainly looked though, he had hoped the expense would pay for itself preventing some of the damage to Finalizer.

"You would have to see for yourself, I couldn't say."

"And no one should." He huffed.

He'd have to check out this other ship and the rooms it contained. There may be something there he could use. He finally retrieved the empty glass.

"...was it any good?"

He glanced up at Ren, still surprised at how quiet and almost manageable he was. Hux had never really felt any fear around Ren no matter how he pushed him, no matter how dangerous he knew Ren to be but this was different.

He doubted Ren would ever forget his time cut off from the Force though.

"It was. A little more sugar next time but I'm still alive so there's that," he smirked slightly as he sat back. "So what else have you been making?"

Oh yes, he was enjoying this for every taunt he had heard in the past about his own background. He was going to take full advantage of this.

It was shocking, but true. Kylo Ren was far more manageable when he wasn't being put on the defensive. When one of them didn't have to fail for the other to succeed, it was possible to actually be civil. But as the entire fleet had already seen, corner Ren and his anger knows no bounds.

In the kitchen, he was a little more relaxed.

Hell, he actually had a serious answer to Hux's question.

"If you heat the gel protein up enough, it makes a good coating for dried vegetables. Spicy chili flavor pairs well."

"I can't believe you're serious about this. I thought you would be going on about how this is beneath the Master of the Knights of Ren and the grandson of- well, you know."

He supposed he had only seen Ren in the war against the Republic and the Resistance while competing for position and favor with Leader Snoke.

Now everything had changed. If anything they now had a common enemy and it worked in both their interests to remain on the same side.

"Well? Are you going to show me then? I want to see if you know what you're doing."

"I'm serious about all the missions I undertake, General."

The fact that he was drawn toward cooking and how easily it came to him was a result of the augment assignment. But really, what else could he do? He was ordered to keep a low profile, and aside from exercise and attempts at meditation, there wasn't much to actually do on this ship.

Ren pulled out a pan and boiled water before adding the gel. He'd tried it with cheddar flavor first, given that his experiment was very similar to fondue, but it was too rich. (If there was one thing Jedi and Knights shared, it was a tendency toward a bland, but nutritious diet.) Spicy chili didn't mask what subtle flavor was left in the dried vegetables.

He dipped a dried green bean into the melted gel and then pulled it out. It stuck to the surface and stopped dripping almost immediately upon contact with the air. These cooled fast.

"Try it." he held the tongs out for Hux to take the snack.

Hux doubted Ren was trying to poison him on purpose at least and accidental food poisoning wouldn't be the worst thing that happened that day.

He reached out to take the green bean carefully, eyeing it for a moment. Living in the depths of the Unknown Regions on a star destroyer didn't exactly provide for many chances to eat food which wasn't processed rations, he was used to living on whatever was on hand for the most part aside from the rare luxury here and there.

So he ate the green bean, curiosity outweighing wariness. "Is this something you just learned how to do here?" he asked suddenly. He wasn't sure how much was the augment and how much this could be something Ren had learned before leaving his family.

Since he had a small pot of liquified gel protein, he dipped a couple dried vegetables in for himself.

"You may have grown up on Star Destroyers, but I didn't. I was being trained as a Jedi before I killed them, Hux. I learned how to cook and eat what I could find."

The augment, though, helped fill in the gaps with what the strange food products here were, what their nutritional content was and what flavors they had. This was easier to get used to than the processed rations he received during the time he was stationed on the Finalizer with Hux.

Snoke had expressly forbidden Hux to speak of Ren's background or previous name but the Supreme Leader wasn't here so he figured he might as well pry a bit while he could.

"I didn't realize cooking was part of Jedi training. So all those times I told you you could make something yourself when you complained about the food you actually could have." He decided to help himself to another dried vegetable without asking. He didn't consider the food here that bad, honestly.

"Not Jedi training per se, but it was a good skill to have. And yes, I could have."

Sometimes, he actually did, but in his own quarters, not in the main galley kitchens where all the troops could see. Officers (and Ren counted, even though he existed outside the command structure) had a few nicer amenities - a private bath, more spacious quarters, a very basic kitchenette, just to name a few.

"Didn't you ever learn the basics in your military academy?"

"Certainly. Cooking lessons were held right after my lessons extolling the virtues of the Republic."

He shook his head as he took a seat once more, crossing his legs as he looked at Ren without amusement. "Imperial and First Order officers aren't trained to perform functions a domestic droid could carry out, despite what you may believe."

Red Fishies

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