When Light Meets Dark - A Reylo Romance

Hanna City

*Where Kylo Ren was born and raised

"The town was paper, but the memories were not."

~John Green, Paper Towns

Kylo

"Ben! Ben!" I heard my mother calling me, and quickly dropped the figures I was playing with.

Outside she was standing on the patio, an empty basket dangling from her arm, tapping her foot impatiently. Her expression softened when she saw me.

"Come along." she said, let's go and get some things from the market."

I hesitated, twiddling my thumbs. It was a hot day and the sun was blazing overhead, sending heat waves over the buildings. The walk to the market wasn't a long one, but I'd much rather have stayed inside in the shade. My mother smiled knowingly.

"If you come with me, I'll let you buy some jogan fruit." she said, shifting the basket to her other arm. I quickly ran over to her and we began to head down the path. I could never say no to jogan fruit.

The market was bustling with life as people went about their buying and selling, even under the cruel heat of the sun. I held firmly onto my mother's hand, to avoid being swept away in the crowd. When we approached the fruit stands however I let her hand drop and ran ahead. The stand was bursting with colour as different fruits from all over the galaxy were lined up in wooden crates. The man behind the stand, who was dressed in an oversized brown shirt, looked at me and smiled.

"What are you looking for young man?" he said, peering down at me. "Anything you want, you'll find here, the best kind! Don't be shy now, tell me what you want." 

I pointed at the jogan fruits, which were carefully packed in transparent bags. "Aah." he said. "These just came in this morning. Oh is this your mother?"

I turned to find my mother standing behind me, and I noticed that she already had a couple of fruits in her basket. I watched as she began to talk to the man at the stand, haggling with him over the price of the fruit. Their conversation stretched on for a while and I soon got bored and slipped away.

I walked through the market, every so often springing out of the way of a passing cart. It was noisy and I couldn't understand many of the languages that were being spoken. After a while I turned into a side street which was slightly less crowded. A small dog ran past me with a piece of meet dangling from it's mouth and soon after a man followed in pursuit. From his bloody apron I assumed he was the butcher. As I stopped to watch this ordeal I heard a voice whisper to me from a nearby stand.

"Psst, kid."

I turned around and saw an old lady who was dressed in strange robes and had several things hanging from her neck. She was crouched over a low stand which was filled with all sorts of items, and from the roof of the stand hung necklaces similar to the ones she was wearing. A couple of them looked slightly terrifying, as they seemed to have bone fragments or some other body part as their pendants. I eyed her suspiciously and didn't move.

"Come and look at what I've got." she said "Rare artefacts from all over the galaxy, you won't find anything else like them in the whole of Chandrila." Her beady eyes watched me as I shifted a little and then took a few steps towards the stand. 

"This one," she said, lifting up a worn out metal rod, "Is the leg of the very first BB droid." she said. "And this." she lifted up a small leather pouch, "Contains shells from the depths of the oceans of Naboo."  I looked around, wondering if my mother was done haggling with the fruit man yet. She would be looking for me. The old woman must've realised that I was losing interest and disappeared behind the stand. I heard her rummaging around and then she lifted her head up and brought something out.