For genprompt_bingo
Dec. 16th, 2020 04:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofleithianTitle: Reanimator
Summary: How did Kylo learn about bringing Rey back to life? When Shara Bey dies, her death plants a seed in five year old Ben’s mind about conquering death, reversing it — something that he gets to as he gets older.
Prompt: The Cost Of Magic
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The first time that Ben Solo thinks to experiment with stopping death, he is five years old, and Shara Bey is dead.
Five years old. Too young to be watching the woman like his second mother sink into the ground, below the earth. Poe is eight, and also too young. He’s wiping away tears from his eyes, and it hurts for Ben to watch. Poe is his best friend in the galaxy, and he doesn’t want him to be sad...
“My uncle says that Mrs. Bey’s with the Force now,” Ben says to Poe. “So she might still be with you, even if you can’t see her.”
Poe nods, sniffling. “You really think so?”
Ben nods. He knows that others will doubt it. But his uncle is a Jedi, and Mommy was a Jedi, and they’re both always right. "Yeah. There’s blue ghosts that always look after you, even if you can’t see them. Obi-Wan, my uncle’s mentor — he’s one. So’s Master Yoda, and Grandpa.”
(He doesn’t know about Anakin Skywalker being Darth Vader. How can he?)
“And Mrs. Bey could be one!” Ben chirps. "She could be with you. Even if you can’t see her.”
Poe sniffles. “I hope."
***
The Voice in his head talks of grand schemes. Of Darth Plagueis the Wise, and his experiments to defy death. Ben is too young to conceptualize it beyond corpses crawling from the ground, like one zombie holo that Uncle Lando had accidentally let Ben see a clip of (he’d been watching the holo when Ben had wandered into the room). You can bring people back to life? Stop people from dying? It fascinates Ben. If he can keep Mrs. Bey alive again...
It’s a child’s wish. He just doesn’t want Poe to be sad. He doesn’t want Poe to be without a mommy; it's unfair that Poe has to be without a mommy.
An older Ben would have realized he loves Poe. Ben at five years old just doesn’t want Poe to be sad anymore.
***
Ben gets older. He reads up on it. The Voice suggests experiments, but Ben doesn’t think he could actually kill something — even in the name of bringing it back to life. He doesn’t want to think about that happening, the body going limp and cold — all through his actions, his own cruelty.
He doesn’t like corpses. They remind him that there used to be something there, and it’s not there anymore.
But he reads.
Apparently, Force Healing can have many variants, from healing injuries to even full on resurrecting someone. Resurrecting. At eleven years old, Ben’s heart speeds up reading it in what Ben knows is excitement. Racing.
Then again, is there anything left of Shara Bey to dig up and resurrect? How long has she even been dead? Six years. Will it be like in some holobooks Ben read, where the body staying dead too long makes the reanimated person homicidal?
Ben hopes not. Of course, no one said anything about Force Healing (full on resurrection) making the reanimated person homicidal.
He just needs practice. Practice.
***
The first time Ben heals something, it’s a bird with a broken wing. It’s skittish, twitchy, but Ben’s good with trapped things. Blue butterflies, for example. The bird’s just scared and lost, and when Ben calms it, heals its wing, it flies away, seeming much happier.
Ben practices.
Luke disapproves.
“You’re doing a good job,” Luke says. “You are. I’m just worried you’ll overexert yourself. The bigger the task, the more life force you transmit to it.”
“I thought the Force connected everything.”
“It does,” Luke says. “But it can be straining. It’s like when I tried lifting that X-wing out of Yoda’s swamp; it can be straining on the body and mind depending on what you’re doing. It requires tremendous concentration.”
“So it just depends on...what I’m healing."
“Yes,” Luke says.
“What if I...poured life into something long dead?”
He doesn’t miss how Luke’s eye twitches.
“It’s just a question,” Ben says. "A hypothetical.”
“Well...I don’t know,” Luke says. “I haven’t tried it, and I think it's best you leave that up to the Force itself. Only the Force can control life and death. If you decided who lived and who died, Ben...I don’t think you’d be very impartial. No one is.”
"I...guess.” Ben almost wants to snap at Luke. Who is he to make assumptions about why Ben wants to do these things?
***
Ben becomes Kylo. Shara Bey has now been dead for eighteen years.
Ben knows, logically, that Shara’s body has nothing left to really salvage. He can imagine pouring life into what’s left would only produce a facsimile, a tragedy. A body that would remind him of Darth Sion in the Old Republic days, shuffling around with bits and pieces of skin falling out...
He wonders, in the end, if he can clone her...
She’ll be alive.
Will she be the same?
It would be easy for Kylo to want a sort-of mother figure under his command to blindly do what he asked. Maybe others would want that. But Kylo doesn’t want Shara an empty husk, bent and broken to his will. He wants Shara Bey back. Vibrant, funny Shara Bey, with a love for the galaxy that she passed on to her son.
More than anything, Kylo wants that Shara back.
***
He makes a clone of Shara. Disturbing her grave, taking a piece of her DNA — and then tenderly rearranging the grave back where he found it. It’s only fair, after all.
It’s in progress. Of course it is. You can’t grow clones out of nothing, make them completely intact. But Kylo can still feel the same tug of wanting to make things right that he did when he was a child. Innocent enough, to not want Poe Dameron to be sad anymore.
He builds. Of course he does. He has to.
***
It’s Snoke who aborts his attempt to make a clone of Shara. “You’re too reliant on the past,” he says. "I’ve told you over and over again to let the past die, and you refuse to listen...”
Kylo grits his teeth against the Force Lightning that hits him.
He hates Snoke. The man is a monster wrapped in a mentor’s skin, and he will never stop hurting Kylo.
***
It’s when he becomes Supreme Leader that he begins his project again. A scrap of DNA, and it begins. It’s not insanity, Kylo thinks, when you’re so determined that you’re going to win this.
And he will win. He will conquer death, control life and death.
He has to.
Summary: How did Kylo learn about bringing Rey back to life? When Shara Bey dies, her death plants a seed in five year old Ben’s mind about conquering death, reversing it — something that he gets to as he gets older.
Prompt: The Cost Of Magic
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The first time that Ben Solo thinks to experiment with stopping death, he is five years old, and Shara Bey is dead.
Five years old. Too young to be watching the woman like his second mother sink into the ground, below the earth. Poe is eight, and also too young. He’s wiping away tears from his eyes, and it hurts for Ben to watch. Poe is his best friend in the galaxy, and he doesn’t want him to be sad...
“My uncle says that Mrs. Bey’s with the Force now,” Ben says to Poe. “So she might still be with you, even if you can’t see her.”
Poe nods, sniffling. “You really think so?”
Ben nods. He knows that others will doubt it. But his uncle is a Jedi, and Mommy was a Jedi, and they’re both always right. "Yeah. There’s blue ghosts that always look after you, even if you can’t see them. Obi-Wan, my uncle’s mentor — he’s one. So’s Master Yoda, and Grandpa.”
(He doesn’t know about Anakin Skywalker being Darth Vader. How can he?)
“And Mrs. Bey could be one!” Ben chirps. "She could be with you. Even if you can’t see her.”
Poe sniffles. “I hope."
***
The Voice in his head talks of grand schemes. Of Darth Plagueis the Wise, and his experiments to defy death. Ben is too young to conceptualize it beyond corpses crawling from the ground, like one zombie holo that Uncle Lando had accidentally let Ben see a clip of (he’d been watching the holo when Ben had wandered into the room). You can bring people back to life? Stop people from dying? It fascinates Ben. If he can keep Mrs. Bey alive again...
It’s a child’s wish. He just doesn’t want Poe to be sad. He doesn’t want Poe to be without a mommy; it's unfair that Poe has to be without a mommy.
An older Ben would have realized he loves Poe. Ben at five years old just doesn’t want Poe to be sad anymore.
***
Ben gets older. He reads up on it. The Voice suggests experiments, but Ben doesn’t think he could actually kill something — even in the name of bringing it back to life. He doesn’t want to think about that happening, the body going limp and cold — all through his actions, his own cruelty.
He doesn’t like corpses. They remind him that there used to be something there, and it’s not there anymore.
But he reads.
Apparently, Force Healing can have many variants, from healing injuries to even full on resurrecting someone. Resurrecting. At eleven years old, Ben’s heart speeds up reading it in what Ben knows is excitement. Racing.
Then again, is there anything left of Shara Bey to dig up and resurrect? How long has she even been dead? Six years. Will it be like in some holobooks Ben read, where the body staying dead too long makes the reanimated person homicidal?
Ben hopes not. Of course, no one said anything about Force Healing (full on resurrection) making the reanimated person homicidal.
He just needs practice. Practice.
***
The first time Ben heals something, it’s a bird with a broken wing. It’s skittish, twitchy, but Ben’s good with trapped things. Blue butterflies, for example. The bird’s just scared and lost, and when Ben calms it, heals its wing, it flies away, seeming much happier.
Ben practices.
Luke disapproves.
“You’re doing a good job,” Luke says. “You are. I’m just worried you’ll overexert yourself. The bigger the task, the more life force you transmit to it.”
“I thought the Force connected everything.”
“It does,” Luke says. “But it can be straining. It’s like when I tried lifting that X-wing out of Yoda’s swamp; it can be straining on the body and mind depending on what you’re doing. It requires tremendous concentration.”
“So it just depends on...what I’m healing."
“Yes,” Luke says.
“What if I...poured life into something long dead?”
He doesn’t miss how Luke’s eye twitches.
“It’s just a question,” Ben says. "A hypothetical.”
“Well...I don’t know,” Luke says. “I haven’t tried it, and I think it's best you leave that up to the Force itself. Only the Force can control life and death. If you decided who lived and who died, Ben...I don’t think you’d be very impartial. No one is.”
"I...guess.” Ben almost wants to snap at Luke. Who is he to make assumptions about why Ben wants to do these things?
***
Ben becomes Kylo. Shara Bey has now been dead for eighteen years.
Ben knows, logically, that Shara’s body has nothing left to really salvage. He can imagine pouring life into what’s left would only produce a facsimile, a tragedy. A body that would remind him of Darth Sion in the Old Republic days, shuffling around with bits and pieces of skin falling out...
He wonders, in the end, if he can clone her...
She’ll be alive.
Will she be the same?
It would be easy for Kylo to want a sort-of mother figure under his command to blindly do what he asked. Maybe others would want that. But Kylo doesn’t want Shara an empty husk, bent and broken to his will. He wants Shara Bey back. Vibrant, funny Shara Bey, with a love for the galaxy that she passed on to her son.
More than anything, Kylo wants that Shara back.
***
He makes a clone of Shara. Disturbing her grave, taking a piece of her DNA — and then tenderly rearranging the grave back where he found it. It’s only fair, after all.
It’s in progress. Of course it is. You can’t grow clones out of nothing, make them completely intact. But Kylo can still feel the same tug of wanting to make things right that he did when he was a child. Innocent enough, to not want Poe Dameron to be sad anymore.
He builds. Of course he does. He has to.
***
It’s Snoke who aborts his attempt to make a clone of Shara. “You’re too reliant on the past,” he says. "I’ve told you over and over again to let the past die, and you refuse to listen...”
Kylo grits his teeth against the Force Lightning that hits him.
He hates Snoke. The man is a monster wrapped in a mentor’s skin, and he will never stop hurting Kylo.
***
It’s when he becomes Supreme Leader that he begins his project again. A scrap of DNA, and it begins. It’s not insanity, Kylo thinks, when you’re so determined that you’re going to win this.
And he will win. He will conquer death, control life and death.
He has to.
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Date: 2020-12-22 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-12-22 08:13 pm (UTC)