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He remembers the first time he saw snow. They were on Fest. One of the many times that the General— then Senator (it’s odd he was always father, papa, or some derivative for a small child, but she… she was always someone to everyone. Never just merely mother ) left her apartments on Hosnian Prime to conduct diplomacy, or divert a crisis, or something that was “too dangerous” to take a small child. But for once, she took him with her.
“Is that candy, mama? Is this planet covered in candy?” a small child asks with wonder in his eyes.
A laugh. Not the polite one that he hears from her in the presence of her colleagues in the Senate, but a soft, full one. A true one that only a few are granted access to hear. Leia leans down to ruffle his hair as she watches Ben stare out at the snow covered peaks of the planet below.
“No, little one. All that white out there, it’s snow.,” She points to the pale landscape as the ship hovers closer to the ground in preparation to land. “It’s very, very cold water.” Ben wrinkles his nose at this revelation.
“But does it taste sweet?” he asks.
“No, sweetling. It’s just water.”
He sneaks a taste anyway when they land. It’s cold. So, so cold, and it tastes like nothing . It’s an odd sensation.
He doesn’t think he likes snow.
His uncle is visiting again. His “real” uncle, not Uncle Chewie, who’s teaching him the growling tongue of his people in between jobs with his father, and not Uncle Lando, who promised to teach him more tricks with cards when Mother wasn’t looking. (Ben doesn’t understand the difference. He just knows that he feels comfortable with Uncle Chewie and Lando. Whenever he sees this uncle he feels like he’s being stared at like a dejarik game that’s the smugglers play in the cantinas.) Just Uncle Luke. Who visits unexpectedly but Mother always seems to know when to ask Father to leave out an extra plate. Mother says he’s a “Jedi” and can use something called the “force”.
Uncle Luke is sitting at the table fiddling with a long slender tube, removing small round, clear objects. The tube looks like the one that normally hangs from his uncle’s belt, but the small, clear jagged things that his uncle is carefully placing in a line on the table are new to him.
“Are those icicles?” Ben shuffles up next him, staring at the clear glistening objects on the table. “Threepio will get upset if water gets on the table.”
“Will he,” Luke mutters wryly, eyes still focused on his task.
“Yep,” Ben nods. “He’ll whine and have conip— contip—,” he frowns.
“Conniption?”
Ben nods emphatically.
“He’ll be very cranky.”
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that those aren’t icicles,” his uncle notes with a soft smile. He looks a lot like mama in that moment, Ben notes.
“But they look like them?” His brow furrows at this.
His uncle gestures towards the small clear objects and they slowly raise from the table. Ben gasps.
“You can touch them,” his uncle nods his head towards them. Ben reaches out to the grasp the one closest to him as his uncle continues. “They’re Kyber crystals.”
It’s small and clear, like the gems on earrings Mother wears sometimes to fancy events. The outside feels cool but there’s something… warm that calls out to him? It’s not like a tangible heat that he feels through his fingers. It’s more akin to the the faint hum of old Alderaanian lullabies that his mother sings to him and the beat of his father’s heart as he holds Ben to his chest after the nightmares come at night. It’s soothing.
Comforting.
He looks back to his uncle.
“Where do you get them?” he asks, looking up at Luke.
“Across the galaxy, they hide in different places that are strong in the Force,” his uncle says as he slowly lowers the cyber crystals into the tube that lays on the table.
“Can I have one?” he blurts out. “Please,” he adds, remembering his manners.
His uncle looks at him. Really looks at him, like he’s thinking about saying something serious and important. He wonders if he said something wrong.
“How would you like to come visit me for a bit?” Luke suddenly asks.
Ben stares at him quizzically.
“You can come learn about the Force and come searching for crystals just like these with me?” he gestures to the one lying in the palm of Ben’s hand.
“Can I come back home when we’re done?” he asks softly.
“Yes,” Luke smiles. “I promise, you can always come back home.”
He kriffing hates snow. They’ve been on this Sith-forsaken rock of a planet for almost four hours now, and they have yet to find this mysterious relic of a temple that his uncle swears exists, and is essential for their studies—more like his uncle studies while he lingers around as a glorified notetaker and occasional barterer of supplies—of an old dead order that his uncle is trying to resurrect.
“Are you sure we’re even on the right planet?” he gripes as they shuffle through the vast white emptiness that is Ileum.
“I thought you would enjoy stretching your legs and exploring, Ben.” Luke grins as he looks over his shoulder, back at Ben. “You said you were getting stir crazy back on the ship.”
“At least on the kriffing ship there was heat ,” Ben says bitterly, pulling one of his many scarves tighter about his face. If pressed, he would agree that the cold wasn’t that bad. The sun is still out and bright, but the wind bites like a rancor. He’s wearing so many layers that he’s drenched in sweat. Honestly, he just wants to ditch this needless scavenger hunt for once and curl into his bunk with a cup of hot chocolate “borrowed” from his uncle’s stash.
“Did I ever tell you about that time during the war--” his uncle begins.
“Why no, Master Skywalker,” Ben drawls irritatedly. “I’ve never ever heard of the story of Han Solo, you, and the tauntaun. Please, please elaborate on this story that I’ve never heard three hundred times before.”
“Sarcasm is unbecoming of a Jedi,” Luke notes offhandedly.
“So’s anything vaguely interesting,” he mutters under his breath.
His uncle stops suddenly.
“Do you feel that?”
“Not really, since it’s incredibly cold. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost any lingering feeling in all my extremities, if they haven’t fallen off yet.”
“Luckily, the Force isn’t an extremity that is subjected to temperature fluctuations.” Luke raises a gloved hand, almost as if he’s trying to feel the air. “Use the Force, Ben. What do you feel ?”
Ben sighs resignedly and reaches out into the all encompassing void that is the Force.
He feels the planet. Well, not the planet per se, but all the life that encompasses it. It’s fairly quiet, a soft hum of creatures trying to eke out an existence in this endless whiteness. Then, he hears it. A low thrumming that echoes the beat of his heart and the heart of the Force itself.
Kyber.
Perhaps, this wasn’t a fruitless search after all.
It still burns. The base is falling to pieces around him. The frigid ground is his only tie to his surroundings. His mind vaguely notes that he’s bleeding into the snow.
She’s never seen snow.
He sensed— no, felt it during their fight. Her shock upon falling onto the ice strewn ground tied into the rage that she channeled into their fight. The alienness of ground being so cold and wet and slippery.
He wonders what she could feel from him.
Pain, obviously. He felt the dull thud at the back of his head from pushing her into the tree. He wonders how much of the searing of his flesh she could feel.
Confusion, perhaps. He’s never expected for his quarry to be one so powerful in the Force. She’s obviously untutored. Her stances are haphazard and untrained but such potential if only she had a teacher. He could be that teacher.
(He knows nothing of teaching. But he knows plenty of mistakes.)
(He’s one of them.)
Fear. He’s gone so far down this path. And yet, he feels weaker than ever. Han Solo’s death was supposed to cleanse him. Strengthen him for the fight ahead. Instead, he feels like a child again. Lost. Alone. Afraid.
(His nightmares have become a reality of ice and darkness.)
(He’ll never see the light again.)
She’s freezing, but she won’t say anything. He can feel her shivering through the bond, even if he can’t directly see her form in the low light of the cavern.
They have an odd sort of truce at the moment.
She doesn’t trust him.
In all honesty, he doesn’t quite trust himself either after a lifetime of false dreams and poisoned whispers in the darkness. Regardless, Skywalker has sent them to Ilum to determine the state of the Kyber crystals on the planet, while the Jedi himself and the traitor slash defector slash cousin— that’s one that he has many questions about, but feels no right to ask at this point in their tenuous, slow reforging of their relationship— go searching for the base of an old Jedi weapon.
Skywalker claimed that it was due to the familiarity of the terrain that he sent Kylo on this… the nicest way to put it is as an “errand” but, to be honest, Kylo doesn’t mind the monotony of this trip. There’s little chance of Snoke deciding to start rolling around in his head at this time— there’s no point in playing with a broken toy— and if he does try to start exerting what little influence he has left over Kylo, well, there’s a deterrent more than willing to slice him down. Well, she could if she stopped shivering every five seconds.
“Never been this cold before,” he asks, strolling up behind Rey, “have you scavenger?”
She glares at him for breaking the silence. It would be fearsome if she wasn’t so pale and obviously freezing.
“I know what cold is,” she bites out, turning back to face the darkness.
“And yet, you’re shivering.”
“Not everyone has a cold, dead heart, Ren.”
“The dead can’t feel, scavenger,” says Kylo. “Trust me, I know,” he adds softly.
“Trust you? You, who’ve turned this galaxy upside down, left your family, murdered your own father, and somehow tied yourself to me—“
“I told you that wasn’t on purpose—“ he begins.
“But everything else was, wasn’t it?” she snarls, tilting her head up to look him dead straight in the eye. “You knew full well what you were doing, and you did it anyway.”
He stills.
He shrugs off his coat. It’s mottled and worn, but warm. He throws it at her, whilst snatching the navigator from her. One of the few tricks he has from a previous life.
“What the hell,” she sputters as she untangles herself from the long swaths of cloth.
“You’re no use as a bodyguard if you keep shivering. Just put it on and keep up.” He stomps off in the vague direction of the caves of his past.
(She feels warmer.)
(He starts to feel warm as well.)
(They both try to not think too hard on it.)
It’s snowing. It seems fitting that the destruction of his master takes place in snow.
There’s a calming silence in his mind now.
Empty.
Peaceful.
He hurts. He can’t tell if it’s coming from Rey, or from him. The bond is blurring everything together.
He feels... grief?
No, she’s grieving.
For him.
He reaches for her, his hand bleeding, but bare.
“Don’t waste your tears on me,” he rasps out.
“I’m not crying,” she says, clutching desperately at his hand. “And you’re not dying on me. I’m still angry at you.”
A half-truth, the bond hums between them.
He closes his eyes and just breathes .
It’s cold again.
It’s been frigid for the past week, with snow finally starting to fall last night. It seems their mission to Fest has been extended longer than expected.
Honestly, he doesn’t mind that much. He prefers missions off world to dealing with machinations of politicians. If they happen to involve a few extra hours to lie in bed with his… he hesitates to say partner —what he has with Rey is too fresh and raw, to put a label on, but it’s a word and sometimes words are needed— well, so much the better.
It’s odd having a relationship with someone who permeates his very soul and yet, to be continually learning about them. He, like many things in their odd partnership, lets her take the lead in this.
Unfortunately, it seems that this time it’s leading him out of a warm nest of blankets.
Come see!
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he mutters, shuffling around their quarters for some clothing to make himself halfway decent. He finds his pants but his shirt is nowhere to be seen.
She’s standing on the terrace, his missing shirt slipping off a shoulder, and two mugs with steam drifting from them in the low morning light.
“It’s cold,” he states, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close to his chest.
“You should have put on a shirt then.” She rubs his arm absentmindedly, her attention fixated on the scene in front of her.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he mumbles against her neck, interspersing kisses between words.
“You have plenty of other shirts, Kylo,” she says, gently pulling his face from adding yet another mark that would need to be covered before they meet with officials later that day. “You could have worn one of those.”
“But this one's my favorite.”
“And here I thought I was your favorite.”
“Come back to bed and I’ll remind you.”
“In a minute,” she says, eyes still focused on the scene in front of her. He looks as well. It’s a standard sight on Fest. Snow and ice everywhere. “I’ve always been either running or fighting in it, but I’ve never really taken the time to appreciate snow.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s lovely.”
He sighs, his breath dissipating into the air. He still hates snow.
“Fine, but I’m getting a blanket.”
But he loves her.