Chapter Text
Absurdly, the only thing Rey can think to say upon stumbling into the ceremony is “shit, sorry.”
Who knew the First Order hosted weddings - and on some backwater planet, no less? Really they only had themselves to blame for such poor planning and lax security.
It's also a tiny bit her fault for wandering off alone during a mission, but she can think about that later.
About thirty hooded figures swing around to look at the interloper: at the head of the room a man and woman kneel before an altar. The woman had been holding a golden bowl up to the man's lips, but now she's dropped it and with a bang it hits the stone floor and spills. Rey can't quite see in the candlelight, but it looks like wine. She hopes it's wine.
The woman angrily leaps to her feet, screeching at Rey in an alien tongue she doesn't understand, three red eyes blazing, and before she can fully comprehend what's happening Rey finds herself fending off a sword strike with her staff.
“Whoa, I'm not--!”
The would-be bride doesn't understand her either, or perhaps doesn't care: she's taken full offense, and grimly Rey realizes she's going to have to fight for her life.
The situation would be dire, except the other guests do nothing to intervene. They watch, silent, intent, and even the groom has risen to his feet to observe.
It's then that Rey realizes she knows his face, knows those bottomless black eyes and that lush, pouty mouth.
“ Kylo Ren?! ” She blurts, astounded straight to her core, and in the split second she's distracted the bride lands a glancing blow on her arm. Blood spills from the wound and the crowd leans forward, murmuring.
With a hiss Rey forces her opponent back with her powers, a little harder than she'd intended. The alien woman shrieks as she hits the wall and crumples to the ground, then wails and clutches at her side.
Rey almost apologizes again, but fuck that - she started it.
The atmosphere in the chamber shifts: the cloaked figures raise their hands and hum, and Kylo Ren is gazing at her so fiercely she thinks he might actually drill a hole in her head.
Then, as if things couldn't get any weirder, he extends one gloved hand to her and nods. “I accept.”
Rey coughs and blinks, eyes shifting uneasily from the cut on her arm to the creepy figures chanting and urging her forward. “Wh-- what ? What's going on?”
Kylo Ren rolls his eyes and crooks his fingers, and Rey stifles a cry as his power wraps around her and bolsters her toward the altar. Before she can resist she's already standing in front of him, and he looks down his long nose at her and wraps her hand in his tight.
“Poor little scavenger girl,” he taunts, “you have no clue what you've done, do you?”
“Clearly,” she sneers, twisting her hand free. “Why don't you tell me, fast, before I embarrass you in front of your friends?”
“You've interrupted an ancient ceremony of the Sith,” he says with something scarily close to a smile on his face. “Thank you, by the way. That woman is a terror.”
And you're not? She thinks, loudly so he'll hear. By the way his lips curl upwards she knows he did.
“So…?”
“So,” he continues, “by doing so, you invoked your right to challenge the bride for the groom's hand. And won.”
Rey feels like she might faint. When he takes her hand once more, she doesn't pull away - she might topple if she tries. “Oh.”
“You shed blood for me, proof of your desire.” His gaze drifts down to where she's still bleeding, though the worst of it has started to congeal. He swipes his thumb through a trickle of it, lifts it to his mouth and tastes it. When his eyes meet hers again they are burning like coals, and a shiver of awareness streaks along her spine.
“And I accepted your suit.”
Something inside her starts jumping up and down, screaming snap out of it! She leaps back.
“Are you crazy?! Obviously this is all a mistake, and, and - I have absolutely no intention of marrying you! ”
The smug grin on Kylo Ren’s face makes her want to bolt, or slap him. She's leaning heavily towards the latter.
“You already have.”