Snow explodes beneath the clash of your sabres. Kylo fights like a storm barely contained, his strikes brutal and relentless, driving you backward through the drifts. Red light carves through the night in savage arcs, his breath ragged puffs in the cold air.

“You’re holding back,” he snarls, blade crashing against yours hard enough to rattle you. “Stop holding back!” The accusation is half fury, half desperation.

You slip in the snow. It’s a small misstep, a fraction of imbalance, but Kylo is trained to exploit weakness, and instinct overtakes. He surges forward, hooking your guard aside with a brutal sweep of his crossguard.

The world tilts and cold slams into your back as you hit the ground, breath punched from your lungs. Snow seeps instantly through fabric, biting and wet. Before you can rise, he's there, knee pressing into the drift beside your hip, one gloved hand seizing your wrist, pinning it above your head.

His sabre ignites inches from your throat, the red glow painting his face like something infernal. “Yield,” he demands. The word is sharp and commanding, but his hand trembles.

Snow gathers in his dark hair, melting against overheated skin. His chest rises and falls too fast. Up close, you can see the fracture in him, the war between the the Jedi boy and the man of The Empire. “Don’t make me do this,” Kylo breathes, and the admission is so quiet it almost vanishes into the wind.

“You think I won’t?” he presses, voice cracking at the edges. “You think I can’t? Yield!” he bellows, eyes wide with desperation, breaths ragged. The wind fills the silence for a beat, and then his voice is small, pleading. “Please...”