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He was furious, staggering through the snow, pain clouding his vision, his hands trembling with a dangerous cocktail of searing agony and red-hot anger. The burn on his face was unlike anything he’d ever felt, inescapable, seeming to burrow into his skin like roots on a tree, setting his nerve endings aflame. He staggered again, sideways this time, and braced himself against a tree. He hissed and jerked backwards in alarm as he brushed his fingertips against the wound to assess the damage. Frustration boiled in his stomach, intensifying as he sensed a distinct and familiar presence.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he growled out, chest heaving, glaring up through the damp black hair that fell in his eyes.
She was perched casually on a stump nearby, one knee to her chest and the other dangling off the side of her seat. Her arms were wrapped around her knee and she swung the other leg absently, observing him with a slight tilt to her head. “Really?” Her voice was as bright and young as it always was, as it had remained for the last thirteen years.
“You’re going to tell me that she’s right,” he spat, scraping his hand against the trunk of the tree with a wince to distract from the pain on his face. “The girl. You’re going to say that I should listen to her.”
She shook her head, amusement in her eyes. “You already know where I stand on that issue. No.” He let out an exasperated huff through his teeth, screwing his eyes shut and slamming his fist against the bark with more force this time. Her face split in a mirthless, lopsided smile. “Hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”
He glared daggers at her. “Then you’re here to gloat.” It wasn’t a question.
She hummed, swinging her leg in small circles. “A little.”
He clutched at his side, leaning his forehead to his forearm and against the tree. He swallowed thickly, the heated skin of his face making him sweat in a glaring contrast to the freezing temperature of the air. His glare pierced the spot where she sat, her sleeveless top baring her arms to the frigid winds. She was entirely unbothered, but then, nothing really bothered her nowadays. She scoffed.
“Plenty of things bother me. You, mostly, but plenty of other things, too.”
“If I bother you so much, why do you insist upon padding after me like a stray cat?”
She grinned again, more broadly this time, her nose wrinkling in the way it sometimes did when she was amused. It made her look young, and the observation struck him painfully in the chest as it always did. It had been thirteen years, and she still didn’t look a day over seventeen anywhere but in the depths of her darkened, melancholy eyes. In appearance, she was only two years younger than Rey, and the revelation bothered him deeply.
“Yeah, you’re an old man now.” She tilted her head, squinting teasingly at his face. “Hm. It doesn’t suit you, especially since you act like a child.”
He scoffed. “You’re the child. You’ll always be a child.”
Her gaze was suddenly piercing, as though she was looking right through him. “And whose fault is that?” she inquired, rhetorically, her voice low but even. His gaze dropped to the forest floor.
“Don’t,” he pleaded with her. “Don’t do this. You always-” he cut himself off as his voice rose, then slammed his fist against the tree again with a grunt of pain. His voice was softer when he continued, tone shameful, eyes downcast. “Do this.”
“I’ll stop doing this when you stop being a dumbass, Solo,” she replied instantly, voice sharp. “We had a force bond when I was still around, and now that I’m dead, it’s my moral duty to pop up and tell you off for being stupid.” Her smile was softer this time. “I always did when I was alive.”
“And I hated you for it,” he said, his tone lacking the anger that his words held. He didn’t bother to correct her when she addressed him by his old name. He had stopped bothering with that a long time ago.
“Past tense? Am I losing my touch?” she asked, mock-affronted. He glared at her, pushing off the tree and stumbling further toward the forest. Her voice rang out, concerned, as he passed her. “Ben.”
“What?” he whirled on her, snarling. “What are you going to tell me this time that you didn’t tell me the last time? Or the time before that?”
She met his gaze calmly. “That I hope you take a second to think before you do something you’ll regret.”
He scoffed. “I don’t think about the past. I don’t have--,” he clutched at his side, turning around to continue his trek forward. “--regrets.” He had staggered a few paces past before her words reached him, like the wind that blew through his hair now had carried her voice.
“Says the man talking with ghosts.”
He felt a distinct chill, and when he turned around, nothing but empty forest and the icy sting of the wind remained.