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When Ben Organa-Solo turned seven he started wearing gloves, started painting his nails every day, shoving his hands in his pockets before he left his room. Using the his power to move objects to him rather than reach and grab. That was when Leia knew.
It started with the hands. “They channel the Force; your fingers will be as dark as your grandfather’s in time.” The voice would whisper, praise so quietly how powerful he would become. That he could become his grandfather’s visage. Beautiful dancing visions of a creature- large and black and entirely inhuman, huge- long appendages with a scaled, leathery cover on them. Cybernetics held the bits of his body together, long ago torn apart by a battle when he’d first become a shadow. Those sharp claws would open to embrace him, to draw him further into the darkness.
But in the waking world his mother would look at his hands and hide her worried tears. His father didn’t understand it- how could he? He was a rebel, a smuggler, a scoundrel on the run from a price on his head. He didn’t even believe in the Force until he’d been slapped in the face with it. He tried. He’d invite Ben to work on the Falcon- the really messy jobs. They’d work out there until oil drips covered their hands to the elbows, little smudges around their faces and bodies and clothes from errant touches.
Sometimes it made Ben feel better- made the color of his nails dip back away until the voice would tell him he was being distracted. Why should Ben care about a father who could never, would never understand the legacy that rested on his shoulders? In the morning the color had reached the first knuckle.
At ten Ben goes off to train with Luke. At the first day there Luke sees Ben’s hands, sees the evidence. The blackness had made it up to Ben’s wrists, his nails growing hard and curved into the beginnings of talons. The blackness thrummed in the veins up his arms, pumping the darkness straight back into his heart. Luke gives him a pair of gloves- large, they cover up to his elbow. The robes Ben picks cover to his wrist anyway. Nobody asks why Ben covers himself.
By fifteen the newly christened Kylo Ren can no longer wear boots. He has to file his nails to prevent them from breaking his gloves. And despite the itching feathers that are breaking through his skin, it’s the budding horns that make him finally choose. The ache that has been pressing from his skull finally broke through with twin rivers of blood arching over his brow.
He woke and cried, mourned for something he had realized he even had to lose. He spoke to his voice again and realized that it was inevitable.
Hux has never seen his face. Kylo knows Hux wonders about it every time they see one another. Vader’s traits were well-kept under the suit, leathery wings folding near flat against his body, hidden under his own cape. Kylo wondered if he would develop wings- would they be large and dark and bat-like as were Vader’s? Or would his already feathery arms develop wholly into wings-- if he gave himself to the Dark. They would be so hard to hide.
And Kylo is very good at hiding his traits; it was what his grandfather had done- had suppressed all that darkness inside a suit that held him into a human-like stature. Vader became too tall to entirely seem human, growing several inches in his transformation. Just as Kylo had done.
Kylo’s boots had been modified to support his long arches (the skin turning dark and scaled, unevenly broken into flesh just above his knees) steel-tipped to prevent unfortunate tears and rips. The gloves were fitted in the same manner. His tail flittered around inside his robes, unseen by any. The feathers, that had grown up to his shoulders- the longest feathers arching gracefully over his collarbones-Kylo realized, were shockingly easy to hide. Well, after they had come in- after breaking the skin and weeks of itching and scratching until he bled up and down his torso, had actually proved to be simple enough to manage daily. In the mornings after he pulled his under suit on the ridges helped to keep the unruly shafts in line. If they did manage to shift he would adjust them with his mind.
The horns were a whole other matter. The sharp, unforgiving teeth that poked from his lips were hidden under his mask- the black sclera ringing his eyes unseen by any. The horns, however.
They had grown long, curling and twisting over his skull- the same style of his dark, waving hair. Namely the adjustment was how his helmet fit- no longer simply sliding over his head and now requiring a separate face plate. One that hooked into place between the horns, for easiest removal. The hood helped, but mostly there wasn’t anything else Kylo could do aside from having a ridiculously overlarge helmet. Instead he carefully placed a thought that developed into a rumor- that the horns were simply a part of his mask. A symbol and nothing more.
Hux was already suspicious.
Not that it matters. After a long interrogation he feel drained, not invigorated. And on the bad days the shafts of the feathers itched, fighting to retreat back into his skin and fall out all together. He could feel it in his bones, how they shifted and resettled, but not how it was before. All the pain and misery was in his mind, he knew it would be physically painless to undo these changes. And even then, that ache of his mind would be eased from the atrocities of his actions.
He had a legacy to uphold. He couldn’t allow himself to fall into the easiest course of action. He had to hold strong, had to lay trust in the Supreme Leader.
“That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask.” The girl- the scavenger- nobody at all- a worthless, entirely human little girl says to him.
He considers her, watches her mind. She thinks she’s speaking figuratively- referring to his awful deeds, not his awful countenance. She thinks he’s scarred and disfigured. He’s tries to think he’s been graced with this face- thinks he can count it as proof of his darkness, of his commitment to his destiny.
He removes the mask- both parts. Moves real close she she can see where the blackened bone joins to flesh, where the spiderweb of inky veins sprawl just under his skin. She’s more concerned by his teeth- there weren’t many carnivores on Jakku, not much natural fauna to begin with. She’s thinking only of the immediate physical danger, nothing of the power that caused this to begin with.
“Take off that mask, you don’t need it.”
Kylo wants to laugh, to scream. “What do you think you’ll see if I do?”
“The face of my son.”
He doesn’t know what to do, for a long moment. He’s at war, once more. At length he sees no downside to showing him- Han Solo. For the darkness he’ll see Han’s disgust and horror. For the light he would dare, would dream to think he’d find acceptance.
So he pulls off the mask and meets his father’s eyes. Han is shocked, but steps closer anyway.
When Kylo holds out his lightsaber, he intended to give it to him- his father. His mind buzzed with cognitive dissonance, the ever ringing noise of opposing ideas that could never be bed partners in his skull. He wasn’t lying; he was so tired of hurting. So tired of fighting this ever uphill battle towards a destiny he couldn’t trust any more.
And as his father’s hand curls around the hilt Kylo’s hand tightens on instinct. The tip of one claw bites through the leather, scraped under the steel tip. The sound of too-hard nails grinding on the metal, whispering all the horrors he’d committed. How could he ever go home? How could he ever be more or less than a creature in a mask?
By being stronger than Vader- he had to fix this error before it became one. He had to hold strong onto this belief that in the end it would all be worth something, anything at all.
His father dies by his blade. Everything in his head goes silent, watching the life fade from his father- no, a rebellion general’s eyes. He should be delighted, should rejoice in the spilling of rebel blood. But the pain is physical when his father’s hand touches- brushes, the gentlest touch Kylo has known in years- his cheek. Han burns away the ink in his blood, the root of his horn aching fiercely, one eye blurring with the frantic shift back to white.
Han falls, and the physical pain explodes in Kylo’s side.
He makes it back to fight. He’s losing himself, he’s lost and can do nothing but fight and hope, pray, wish that somehow he’ll have a future after this. When one hand’s glove no longer fits- the nails contracting painfully into his hand, he digs his fingers into the wound at his side. He thinks of the pain and thinks of the wings he should have grown.
With every injury he gains his mind is shattered twofold, trying so hard to keep a hold on the broken fractal cutting through his entire existence. Pieces of him are still holding on to the darkness- his left horn feels solid, the joints in his toes are cooperating, the feathers from his right shoulder to elbow are held flat against his skin. And there are parts that are not. His right eye is out of focus, his left hand jerking as feathers and skin and bone shifted aimlessly, aching to find a direction.
Rey, the scavenger, gives him a scar at the end of it. It doesn’t matter how he decides any more; he’ll always hold a physical mark.
Hux finds him in a pool of blood, an ominous mix of scarlet and liquid obsidian. Hux wants to be disgusted by this thing. The Order, following in the Empire’s footsteps, did not have a pleasant view on non-humans. There was not an explicit law in place against aliens, but it was well understood that humans were the rightful emperors of the galaxy. And this creature that bled into the white snow was less than human- less than whatever creature he had pretended to be.
Kylo’s eyes are out of focus, far away. His chest rises and falls in shaking breaths, no distinct pattern to follow. One horn is cracked awfully. His lips are bleeding (crimson) from where his three sharp teeth (irregularly placed, should there have been more?) have ripped through his own skin. One leather glove has been torn to shreds, barely hanging on around Kylo’s wrist. The revealed hand is grotesque, mottled with half-revealed feathers and gray-blue skin. His from middle finger to pink have black nails, but only the ring finger bears a claw.
Hux wants to be disgusted, but can only find himself transfixed. In a broken, awful way, Hux thinks he’s beautiful.
Snoke had stated he was to complete Ren’s training. Whatever returned from the Supreme Leader’s base would not be as kind looking as Kylo Ren.