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[outer_space]

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[imahologram]

I doubt you're going to beat me in this arena.

Now, let's try this again. What do you have against Han Solo?

[outer_space]

What concern is it of yours?

[imahologram]

When people I care about are beaten by strangers, I want to know why. Strange, I know.

[outer_space]

He didn't want to know why.

Does he know you're asking?

[imahologram]

He wanted to get away from you. I can't imagine why.

[She wants to bristle at the question, but she's promised honesty, and she's not going to break her word to Ren.]

I don't tell him everything I do, no.

[outer_space]

I'd ask if this is an attempt to play peacemaker, but I know you.

Keep him away from me.

[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.