Kylo woke up slumped over the desk in his room.

He hadn't remembered falling asleep like that, but he had stayed up far late into the night pouring over the books Maz had given him. He had been searching for some sort of clue into the mermaid's odd behavior. All he had found was recounts of many battles dotted with the rare less than hostile encounters between merfolk and adult humans, but never between them and a child.

Then, apparently, he must have passed out face first into the old and dusty tome he'd been reading. This itself wasn't exactly unusual for him, long periods of insomnia were an occupation hazard after all, but it brought a slight smile to his face when he saw the wadded up pillow Rey must have slipped under his forehead.

When he stood up, one of his blankets fell off his shoulders as well. He laughed, picking it up, before turning to thank her for her undeniably sweet attempt at looking after his comfort.

However, his guest was nowhere to be seen. He would have sworn she would be a standard fixture in his bed every morning. Perhaps he'd been rather looking forward to a repeat of last morning's interaction. But his bed was empty, and a quick scan of his mind across the nearby rooms revealed that her unique sense of nothingness was nowhere close either.

He frowned and dressed quickly. Today was a thick and dim morning, and he chose his full battle regalia except for his mask to fit the mood of the night before. Battle was brewing in the air. They were drawing closer with each wave the Falcon broke. Kylo was ready for it, and he needed to lead his Knights forward with the same conviction he felt burning through his heart.

The halls outside his room were silent. Kylo could feel all of his Knights up except for Taleisin whose Force signature was projecting such weariness that Kylo opted to let him have a morning sleeping in. It was quite possibly the last time on this mission that would would have such an opportunity and, if the fight looming ahead was anything like Kylo was expecting, they would all need their power and strength to be at its fullest.

He first went into the Falcon's galley. Inside were Ria, Mayenne, and Silas. They had laid out the navigation maps, though Mayenne was the only one eating. The other two were lost in conversation, pointing at different points on the map while Silas scribbled down what looked like calculations.

"Sir," Mayenne said, tipping her head.

Kylo nodded and stepped past her. The large cooking pot of stew from last night simmered slightly on the stove top, but his appetite hadn't recovered yet from the grim sight he'd seen only a few hours before.

Instead, he poured himself a cup of strong, steaming caf and stood behind his Knights. Ria and Silas waited for him to speak before continuing their discussion of the map.

"Have you spoken to the boy yet?" he asks Mayenne.

It had been a pressing thought against his mind. Kylo had calculated for nearly every possible contingency when they'd set out for this mission. However, the notion of somehow being responsible for a Force sensitive orphan hadn't made the cut. What in the gods were they going to do with him now?

Mayenne shrugged and poked at the bottom of her bowl of leftover stew. Despite what the child might have first thought about her, she was hardly the sensitive and nurturing soul he needed her to be. Part of her nature was very practical, and the other half tended toward cold detachment. Mayenne's story was one not of orphaning, but deliberate abandonment when her Force powers had first started to develop. It had made her hard-edged and unforgiving. Good qualities for a Knight of Ren to possess, but hardly a good caretaker to a young child. Taleisin, the twins, or even Silas would probably be better at emotional support than Mayenne would.

"I talked to him a little this morning," she finally said. "He didn't want to say much. I pressed him as much as Gareth and Balen would let me. His name is Alem. His family and all the rest of the ship were settlers."

Kylo pondered that as he poured himself a second cup of steaming caf.

"Settlers? Where from?"

"The Grey Peaks." Ria pushed away from the map to join in their conversation. "Alem didn't know many of the other passengers beyond his family, but it seemed like they were from several kingdoms. Many weren't from Winterton at all, it seems, only passing through."

"From the little I could gather, they were all normal people," Mayenne says. "Farmers and smiths and the like. I pressed the boy for details but he didn't know. Now I wonder if maybe their Captain or someone on board had an enemy?"

This was far more than the work of a personal vendetta. Why kill everyone, save for one unlucky boy?

"What else?" Kylo asked. Mayenne shook her head, her displeased face telling him everything.

"Alem didn't even know the captain's name," she continued. "The ship was called The Wayfarer. I got that much out of him. Our records show that a ship of that name was originally a Winterton merchant vessel that would be sometimes leased out. Last time was two summers ago. As far as we know, it shouldn't have been out here at all."

Kylo frowned, swirling the inky dark contents of his cup around as he tried to piece it all together. The boy looked to be around the age of ten. Young enough to not pay attention to too much more than what his parent's gave him, but old enough to remember. Kylo tried to recall what he himself had been like at that age, but it had been long before he'd started repressing his memories to forget about his earlier life.

"Does he have any family back in his homeland?" he asked hopefully. "Or anywhere else either? Winterton? Grey Peaks was neutral during the war, but now they have a closer connection with Winterton and many of their citizens move freely between both kingdoms."

Mayenne shook her head. "No one," she answered.

Kylo sighed. So he truly is an orphan. Deeply difficult, for everyone involved.

And the family was from the Grey Peaks? Kylo had just assumed the ship and passengers had been from Winterton, and that might by a massive stretch explain a motive. But the Grey Peaks had been neutral. It was a small, landlocked and highly mountainous kingdom. Barely a speck on the world map. They had supplied ore to Winterton during the war that had fueled their weapons forges, but it seemed unlikely that that would be enough of a motivation to fuel the slaughter of an entire ship of innocent civilians.

"Where were they bound to?" Kylo asked Mayenne.

"The boy didn't directly know either. As far as I could get form him, he and his family were going to be dropped off at the Ring Islands. Not all the settlers were staying there, though. Some were heading on to gods only know."

The Ring Islands. Kylo had to scan his memory for even a faint notion of them. "They're past the Western Station. There's nothing there but a few uninhabited pieces of rock. Maybe they could be made fit for farming if someone was motivated enough, but now at this time of year?"

She shrugged. Ria shook her head, agreeing with his assessment.

"Maybe they were motivated," she offered, "but you're right, it doesn't make sense. Winter is almost on top of us, and it would set in even earlier out there. They wouldn't even have time to gather enough firewood to last the season, let alone build a home that could weather out the cold."

Kylo roughened his brow. So what did they have then? A slaughtered passenger ship from a small, neutral Kingdom. A land of so little consequence that they didn't even keep their own permanent ships in Winterton's ports and simply leased them out as needed?

He sighed. Set down his empty cup and poured himself a third. It was going to be that sort of morning, clearly.

"How did he take the news of his family?"

That touchy subject. Kylo only hoped that Mayenne had dug deep and found her sensitivity in this delicate situation.

"Gareth and Balen told him, not me. They said he took it quietly. He's scared of us and I think he's probably still in shock over all this."

Scared of them? No doubt. Kylo could hardly blame him for that.

He turned then to join Silas who was still scowling down at the various scattered maps. Their youngest Knight hadn't had anything to say about the events yet, but he and Ria had planned the route they were taking.

"Brother," he addresses, "how long until we reach the Station?"

Silas tapped a point on the map near to the dark 'X' he'd drawn.

"We're here," he said. "Close. If our strong tailwind holds, we should arrive there near midnight tonight."

The Station was supposed to be abandoned, but Kylo doubted it. Maz had suspected that it had fallen into ill-use recently, and the ship he had sensed last night had been heading in that direction at their fullest speed.

So it would b a nighttime siege then. That had both strong advantages and disadvantages. The masked figures he'd sensed on that ship had the Force with them. It would even the playing field and reduce the advantage of the Knights arriving under the cover of darkness.

Kylo looked closer at the map. Drew the trade route map close to it and studied the paths. Travel in this part of the ocean was at best infrequent. The closest trade route wasn't marked as being particularly near.

"How long would this one delay us if we were to veer off course for it?" he asked.

Silas hesitated, then sighed.

"Two or three days. Three more likely, because this time of year the winds don't flow that way. So there and back again probably near a week."

Inwardly Kylo cursed. They didn't have a week. Any trace of their enemy would have ran cold by then and they would be back to square one.

On the other hand, that route marked their only real chance of finding a friendly or neutral ship the could pass the boy off onto. They could flag them down, demand they take him, and pay for the boy's fare to wherever the ship was bound to. Give the boy a decent start of coin for himself as well. Perhaps pay someone to be his caretaker until h was old enough to be on his own in a few year's time.

"Sir," Ria said, "even if we were to go to that route, the odds of us finding a ship out here now are slim. We might ave to wait for even more days or longer, if we were to be successful at all."

True. Regrettably so. But otherwise it meant drag a child into a bloodbath. This literally couldn't have fallen upon them at a worse possible time.

It was a tough decision, but ultimately an obvious one.

Kylo nodded to Ria. She tipped her head in agreement, her face impassive but Kylo could sense her approval.

"We hold course, then. Silas, push our sails as hard as you can. Get us to the Western Station tonight. We'll hide the boy in our hold in case of the worst."

That was the best they could offer him, but it felt like hardly anything.

Silas nodded, stepping out and heading up to the top. Mayenne dropped her bowl in the sink and left, keeping whatever her thoughts on this to herself.

Kylo cleared his throat and Ria paused in her stacking of the maps to give him a questioning look.

"Have you- er- this morning when I woke up-"

"She's with the boy," Ria answered, a hint of a smile pulling at her voice. "The twins are there too. Perhaps you should go and pay them a visit, Sir? See if they've gotten anything more out of him?"

And to see how Rey's behaving herself. Not that Kylo thinks she would hurt the boy, but… but Rey was a lot. She had risked herself to rescue him, but if the boy could somehow sense that she was a half-mermaid herself? It would be problematic.

Kylo nodded, dismissing Ria. He gave the navigation charts one last long and hard look before turning and heading off to find what his mermaid had been getting herself up to.

The boy's room was makeshift, sparse, and wholly cramped for the six of the people inside it.

Rey was with them. She was sitting next to the boy on the table they turned into his bed. Her legs swung back and forth over the edge, and she looked down at their newest guest with a sadness tinged smile.

Kylo frowned at her, but stayed lurking in the doorway alongside Ria. The child would cringe every time either of them took a step close,r but it was Kylo's presence himself that seemed to fill him with the most fear.

"I probably shouldn't have worn my armor for this," Kylo whispered under his breath.

Ria nodded. She herself was in her full battle attire as well, though she had pulled back the headdress she normally covered her face with. Arguable it made her look somewhat less intimidating, though the affect then became one of an exceptional tall and broad woman in full mourning.

The Knight's of Ren all worse battle clothing designed to intimidate. Now it was a bit of a problem.

"So tell us about the Captain, could you?" Gareth asks.

He's drawn up a seat next to the bed and is sitting in it in reverse. His posture is hunched over and, like his twin leaning against the wall behind him, he's both casually dressed and very out of character.

"The Captain?" the boy asks quietly.

Kylo makes the mistake of clearing his throat. Their guests eyes immediately widen and he cringes deeper under the blankets covering him. Rey tuts, patting at his shoulder, and he gives her a sidelong look as well.

"Sure," Gareth continues, "the Captain of your ship. The Wayfarer. It wasn't too big of a vessel, you had to have at least seen the Captain a few times right, Alem?"

"Um… He was- an older man. Too old to be a captain. I didn't like him."

"Yeah, old people can be scary," Balen agrees, his voice artificially mild. "What didn't you like about him?"

The boy- Alem, Kylo has to keep reminding himself- shakes his head. Both twins give him a smile in unison, but his young eyes flicker back to Kylo with clear distrust in them.

"He-he yelled at my dad. When we went to get on the ship, we were late. The Captain wasn't happy."

Gareth nods. Kylo detects a faint shift of relief from their guest. Apparently the twins were making inroads into his good graces, albeit little by little.

"Could you tell us anything more?" Balen asks.

"Um… He… I dunno..."

Kylo holds back his sigh. He looks to Ria who's watching from her own corner with a stoic expression.

"Go on," Balen prompts. "Anything. Tell us how your trip was until- er..."

"Met any other kids on board?" Gareth quickly interrupts. "What did you and your parents do to pass the time?"

The boy blinked. He was clearly still in shock, his responses muted and every poke at his psyche revealed a fractured mess. When he speaks, his voice shakes, and Kylo instinctively took a step further out of the room.

"My mom and dad fought a lot," he said. "My sister and I would hide from them. Did you find her too?"

His eyes widen as he looks first at Gareth, then over his shoulder at Rey. Kylo's mind briefly flutters back to that headless child he'd seen, but she could have been with any of the families on board. Still, best to be on with it. If the child was Force sensitive enough, he could easily sense a lie even without training.

"You were the only survivor," Kylo tells him honestly

Honesty, however, earns him a dirty look from all involved, including Ria. Even Rey wrinkles her nose, shaking her head at Kylo before rubbing the boy's hair in a soft circle.

"What Lord Ren means," Balen begins to say, "is that we found you at night and you were under the water so-"

"Lord Ren?!"

The child's voice squeaks. He looks at Kylo with saucer sized eyes before darting most of his head under the covers. Rey hisses, scowling at Kylo and attempting to take the squirming bundle of their guest into some manner of a hug.

Kylo mouthes what did I do? Ria looks back and forth between him and the bed then shakes her head.

"Alem?" Gareth asks, gently pulling back the blanket until two terrified eyes peek back out. "What's wrong?"

"Is that Kylo Ren?" the timid voice asks.

All of his present Knights stare at him. Kylo takes a step back, now halfway out of the room and blocking the hallway to a baffled looking Mayenne as she passes.

"Going well in there I take it?" she asks, but he silences her with a stern glare and she quickly continues on.

"Did you kill my family?" the child asks.

Kylo physically recoils from that. Where in the world would he- is that what the boy thinks is going on? That he and his Knights attacked the ship?

"No," he says, taking half a step forward but Ria stops him with a nudge of the Force. The boy was starting to panic, the sense of his fear flooding the air.

"Alem," Gareth says, leaning forward and patting at a hand-shaped lump under the blanket. "I don't know what you've heard about us Knights but-"

"You kill everything you see. Dad says that's how Winterton lost the war. Because you killed all of them."

That… was so full of errors that Kylo could hardly begin to choose the worst one. But if this child's father had been a Winteron sympathizer… it was still hardly grounds for what happened to the whole rest of the ship.

"We didn't attack you," Kylo promises.

He presses a wave of sincerity toward the boy's mind but Gareth immediately pushes it back. Annoyance sparks in Kylo at the out of line gesture, but maybe his Knight had a point. Even now when the boy's mind was an utter mess, he could sense the raw nature of his connection to the Force. He had potential to be quite powerful. Some day. Pity they couldn't have met him on the Island or anywhere else other than here and now.

"Er..." how does one speak to a child? A traumatized child? One of his age who's now completely alone. Kylo has no idea of any of that, so he tries a different approach. "Do you remember what happened in the water?" he asks, hoping that the change of topic will make the boy forget about exactly who's ship he's on.

He takes one step forward. The boy could hardly shrink anymore, but between Rey's and Balen's persistence they seem to be bringing him back from the edge of an inevitable meltdown.

"A girl kissed him," Balen teased, his tone forcibly light. "You told me that, didn't you Alem? You got down in the water and got kissed by a girl?"

The eyes peek out a little further. There's a slight tint of pink to the boy's ears, and embarrassment flutters through the Force. Rey tuts, lightly pulling two pieces of his hair from side to side until he looks at her.

"We were about your age too when we had our first kiss, weren't we Balen?" Gareth looks over his shoulder, and his twin simply bounces his eyebrows back at him.

Kylo estimates this child was about ten or eleven. He shakes his head, giving Ria a mutual frown.

"Was she pretty?" Balen asks. "A pretty girl kissed you in the water?" His teasing light but either the boy was too shell shocked to register it or the plainness of their conversation was helping calm him. "

"She was a mermaid," Alem whispers. "She didn't- she was helping me breathe. I couldn't and… and..."

"And she kissed you?" Kylo asks. "You mean she gave you air?"

The head nods. One of the mermaids had done that to Kylo, too. It hadn't made sense at the time, but neither had it felt like she was attacking him.

Then Rey had cut off her head, but Kylo opts to omit that part around the child.

"What did they do to you down there?" Ria asks, breaking her silence. "Down in the water what happened?"

The child's emotions spike again and Kylo fights the urge to rub his temple. He could tell they were nearing the end of this and the boy would need to be left to recover soon, but they had barely gotten any useful information yet.

"It's alright," Balen says, nudging at the child's mind gently with a calming press of his own.

"You can tell us," his twin agrees.

Rey pokes at the edge of the blanket and makes a cooing noise.

"It was dark," Alem finally says. "I couldn't see, but… I felt them wrapping me up in something. They were pulling me away from the ship but I didn't want to go. It was on fire and my family was up there and-"

A massive surge of raw pain surges out along the Force. The boy was trying very, very hard to keep himself together, and Gareth says something quiet, attempting to soothe him. Rey wraps herself tighter around his shape and squeezes him. Hopefully not scaring him even more.

Ria gives Kylo an alarmed look as she hurries away. Kylo calls Balen to go with them before leaving himself. His own presence had done precisely zero good and likely much harm to the delicate situation.

"So," Ria speaks first, "what do you make of all this?"inches the bridge of his nose. It was a karking mess in every direction he looked at it.

"Apparently I'm very good at scaring small, defenseless orphans but doing nothing more than standing there breathing."

Wonderful. Even his mermaid had looked at him like he was a monster.

Kylo pinches the bridge of his nose. It was a karking mess in every direction he looked at it.

"Apparently I'm very good at scaring small, defenseless orphans but doing nothing more than standing there breathing."

Wonderful. Even his mermaid had looked at him like he was a monster.

"Well, Sir," Balen says, "you're kind of a scary guy. And your bedside manner is lacking."

"Sorely," Ria agrees.

Kylo scowls at her. She had hardly done much better herself with not scaring the child. Though she had also barely said a word in front of him. Kylo might have to implement that strategy next time.

If there's a next time.

He paces down the hall to the staircase above decks and his Knights fall in place behind him.

"Balen," he says, "please tell me you got something of use from him before I arrived. The Captain. The ship. Crew. Anything."

The twin clears his throat and Kylo stops at the start of the stairs.

"Well, we did," Balen says. "Not much, but we did get him to talk a little before the big, bad, breathing monsters came into the room."

Kylo looks to Ria. She shakes her head. She'd been there when Kylo had arrived, but not by long.

"Alright."

"Well, the kid- Alem- said his father gotten sick, but it wasn't like a regular sickness. Made him go all funny in the head and say crazy things. Alem didn't know what was going on, but the way he described it his dad was seeing things. High fever, talking nonsense, except no one knew what was wrong with him. Then he disappeared."

Kylo raises an eyebrow, a creeping sense of dread pulling at the corners of his mind. "Disappeared?" he asks. "The father?"

"Yeah. He was gone for two nights, apparently, then he came back with no fever or anything, but he wasn't acting right. Not like he used to, Alem said. Suddenly had it in his mind to drag them all away from their homes and get on his ship going out to karking nowhere. I expect hat was what all that fighting between his mom and dad was about."

Kylo looks back to the door where the child's room was. None of the others had come opt yet, but the Force was in great disturbance in there.

"Anything else?" he asks.

I tried to get more out of him," Balen continues, "but he was getting upset. That sharp toothed girl of yours started to growl and fuss at me for making the boy nearly cry, and that went and made him even more afraid."

"She's not my girl," Kylo says on impulse.

Both Balen and Ria give him a pointed stare. Kylo swallows and clears his throat.

"So you think..." What? What does he think? "Some sort of mental coercion? A powerful enough Force user could sway someone's mind like that, but they'd have to have a reason to."

"These people were no one," Ria steps back and leans against the wall as she thinks. "Simple miners from nowhere. They shouldn't have been out to see at all, let alone all the way out here past any of the normal routes. If anyone was under a Coercion to come here, it would have had to be the Captain. But what of the fathers behavior? His sickness?"

Kylo taps his chin. Looks to Balen who shrugs a shoulder.

"He could have just gone off in the head. Hold a fever for too long and maybe he came back all scrambled. I'm more worried about what those mermaids were doing right there as the ship was burning. Alem didn't make it sound like they were hurting him."

Before Kylo could answer, the door to the child's room opened and Gareth stepped out. He shook his head at them as he walked over.

"Had to put him under a sleep spell," he says. "Your girl got pretty angry with me for that. She's sitting next to him now looking like she'll try to cut my head off if I try that again."

Kylo tries but can't quiet stop his inner flinch. It was a fair assessment. Rey really might try that.

"Do you think she can stay with him then when we get to the Station?" Ria asks. "If the child s that upset, then he might try to do something foolish. We have no idea what's waiting for us there."

"He shouldn't be here," Balen agrees, "your wild woman stays with him and we won't have to worry about her going all crazy and feral either."

It wasn't a bad concept. In theory. Except Kylo knew with a certainty that Rey would categorically not be staying quietly on the ship. If he tried to keep her there, she'd find her way out like she always did. Best she come with them from the start so he can keep an eye on her. As for the child there was nothing that could be done other than lock him somewhere deep in the ship and hope for the best. That was all they had left at this point.

author's note:

Ugh, sorry this chapter was kinda draggy and not a heck of a lot actually happened. I've been doing nanowrimo and got completely wrapped up in a story I'm hoping to publish before the end of the year. Normally fiction writing is such a drag but this time it wasn't so I was writing while the iron is hot, as it were.

But at least I got something out, right? The Path that Moonbeams Make is nearly ready, and we're about to get to what I hope is a very exciting part of this story as we build up towards Act 3 so I hope you all stick with me for it! XOXO

And as always: find me on tumblr at .com and on twitter at Ava_Avdal : )

comment replies:

Demelza1999 – I'm glad you enjoyed chapter 27! I hope you checked out this latest update too! Thanks for commenting! : )

.Feathers – Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up, November's just a real tough month for me with nano and traveling and inevitable colds etc. How many more chapters? Well… At least 10, probably. Maybe more, probably not less. Pretty soon I'm going to settle down and iron out the ending properly. As for Rey, she'll be alright. This story has a happy ending, don't worry! Thanks for commenting!