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[outer_space]

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[imahologram]

That goes without saying.

You still haven't answered my question.

[outer_space]

Remind me what it was.

[imahologram]

A third time?

You're not a stupid man, Kylo Ren. You know what the question is.

[outer_space]

You seem to enjoy repeating it.

[ But he's stalling. He knows it, she knows it.

It's an impossible question. Han Solo shouldn't register to Kylo Ren. Another smuggler, someone of no account.

What he has against Han Solo is that for a moment he, Kylo Ren, admitted the possibility of something else.

The fact that he's still shaken by it. ]

The man is nothing. He's debris, like that ship of his.

[imahologram]

[Which tells her nothing, even if there's nothing about it that seems like a lie.]

Is that how you greet every spacer whose ship you don't like? It seems like a lot of effort for someone who's "nothing."

[outer_space]

He was in my way.

[imahologram]

Literally?

[Come on, Ren, that's kind of pathetic.]

[outer_space]

What else is there?

[ To you? ]

[imahologram]

In a ship big enough to accommodate twenty-foot-tall droids? 'Figuratively' sounds more likely.

How did you meet him anyway?

[outer_space]

I don't remember.

Even if I did, it's unimportant.

[imahologram]

And why's that?

[outer_space]

Because he's unimportant. And frankly, uninteresting.

What have you learned about the Force?

[imahologram]

That I have it, for one. You knew that, didn't you?

[outer_space]

Yes, I did. It's shameful you went so long without knowing.

Did you suspect?

[imahologram]

Why would I? There was no one to tell me it was there.

I'm guessing it wasn't like that for you.

[outer_space]

Never? [ Were he speaking, the word would be gentle. ]

It runs in my family. It was almost expected.

[imahologram]

I was adopted when I was very young. If my parents knew I was strong in the Force [and, she knows, they probably did--it's a fact that she's been wrestling with for some weeks now] they didn't know from experience, only secondhand knowledge.

[Ren is fortunate that these are subjects she speaks on easily. It's common knowledge that she was a war orphan, an Organa who was chosen. Other, less easily spoken things that come to mind--Before I was nineteen, I'd never met a Jedi--she doesn't type.]

You were raised knowing that the Force was more than an old story. You must understand what a difference that makes.

[outer_space]

[ He hates the way she says that—he must—but it's true. A truth so simple it's gone overlooked. He pauses to think of a boy numb to the universe; of a woman who's realized her potential, resplendent with power rather than shrinking from it. ]

I'm sorry.

I presume none of the Jedi have said that, so I will. Have you begun training?

[imahologram]

Don't be. They were good people, even if they couldn't help me with this.

[The Jedi haven't said it, as it happens, and she doesn't mind that loss--though Ren's expression of sympathy seems well-meant, if she's reading it correctly. (He seems like a man for whom tone can be everything.) Living in the future, he likely never met Bail or Breha; he can't understand the depth of love and respect she feels for them.]

Not in earnest. Apparently the Jedi Order takes a dim view of personal relationships.

[outer_space]

And you love Han Solo.

[imahologram]

Yes, I do.

[outer_space]

[ Reading those words, he has the sensation of slipping outside of himself.

He used to wonder.

A delay before his fingers are his again, before he brings them back to the keys. ]

The Jedi denounce fear. They say it fosters anger, and anger hatred. Yet their methods rely on instilling fear in those who adopt them.

Don't love. Don't hate. It's too much for you.

There is no wrong way to feel.

[imahologram]

If there's one thing I've learned from the Jedi here, it's that they're hardly infallible.

[Love and acceptance shouldn't be an either-or proposition. But that's what it is--what it seems to be, anyway--for the order that raised her father. You can hold family and friends dear, can look out to the horizon and see a future surrounded by those you care about, or you can be a good Jedi. You can't have both.

There is no wrong way to feel. It's something she can agree on--it's the kind of lesson she'd want to pass on, the sort she might herself offer as words of comfort--but there's something that gives her pause.]

And when you feel the desire to hurt others? You feel there's nothing wrong with that?

[There are limits to what she'll accept in this philosophy.]

video - backdated to like 6/25

[bosswald]

[Clara hasn't been sleeping well at all, so she's essentially lost track of time. Which is why she sends a video message his way at an incredibly late hour, not realizing the time. She figures he can just respond to her whenever he gets around to it. She looks exhausted, skin pale and dark circles under her eyes. She's smiling though, just a little, not about to let this whole work induced insomnia get the best of her.]

I feel that you should know we'll be working together in the foreseeable future.

[Yep, that's right, she's recently been named an Intelligence Operative. Not that she hasn't been pretending she was already one to begin with.]

Also, I need to ask your help. I think it may end up being important that I do.

[outer_space]

The foreseeable future. [ Kylo repeats. Not a word about the hour. He's awake but dreamy-eyed, staring at the screen without really seeing her.

It's possible he replies only because that phrase deserves to be sneered. He hasn't begun to consider its implications. ]

All thirty minutes of it.