Creatures in Masks
A Reylo fic inspired by Jane Austen
It is a well-known and established custom in Coruscant that the victorious mourn their dead with masked revelry and celebration. There is a somber moment at the height of night, when the lights are brought to their brightest and the masks are removed: a moment of silence. Those in attendance are free to observe the faces of their fellow creatures and to read the sorrow in their eyes. Many were to be honored thus: senators and citizens of the Hosnian System, Republic forces, X-wing Resistance pilots, and Han Solo…
"Is all this fuss really necessary?" Rey complained as the General continued to subdue the last bit of her nut brown hair until it met with her satisfaction.
"There now, I am nearly finished. Just a touch more and you will be perfect," Leia replied adjusting a few more of the red, velvety desert blooms in the young woman's coiffure. "You must be presentable to society, now that you are a Hero of the Resistance."
Rey shrank from Leia's praise and ministrations, played with the voile overlay of her cinnabar gown between her fingers, and muttered quietly, "I am no hero; I am no one."
The General took her by the shoulders and spun her in the vanity chair until they were face to face. Leia took the young woman's chin in her hand, gently, but firmly told her, "Cease this self-effacement, it does you no good. Know your worth." Rey, startled, met the General's warm brown eyes with her own. Leia gave her an appraising look and Rey felt the power of the Force brush behind her eyes like a ribbon of silk. Leia nodded once, to herself, and stated, "You look like a hero to me."
Rey stood up ready to march out of the General's salon in her soft dance slippers and meet the reception head-on like an enemy in battle. Leia reached out to clasp her hands and squeeze them gently.
"Tonight is not only a celebration of our victory at Starkiller Base; it is a celebration of the beings who lived. They are dead," Leia paused to swallow the lump in her throat, "but we celebrate their lives – given freely in service to the Republic or taken in the night like a thief by the First Order."
Rey forced away the tears that threatened from the back of her throat, thinking of Han Solo, and over a billion other lives she would never know. The General would not tolerate her protégée smearing her cosmetics down her cheeks.
"Your mask," Leia held up the red-violet mask and the pins to keep it in place. Rey stooped so that the General could place it over her eyes and pin the flaring wings to the hair gathered behind her temples.
Rey was frightened she would be foisted with wearing something cosmopolitan, exotic, and utterly ridiculous. But the General's Modiste took the inspiration from her little desert flowers on Jakku to create her costume. Rey's ensemble made her look like she was ready to take flight: hair swept back hair into wedge-shaped buns that resembled wings, the flair of her neckline from décolletage to shoulders that exposed her collarbones, and the simple lines of her empire-waist gown that fluttered mellifluously over her long body like air over the curves of an elegant spacecraft in atmospheric flight.
The General slid on her own mask, one that completely covered her face and resembled what was called a felid. The mask was white with ears pointed upward and a smug, satisfied pout to the mouth that conveyed both disdain and indifference. Rey had yet to see such a creature in the flesh, but she had watched many amusing holovids of the small, furry predators that shared human homes. Leia turned on the voice modulator in the mask and asked Rey is a purring voice, "How do I look?"
Rey took in the General's white ensemble from the kitten heels to the bell sleeves to the cowl neck and replied, "Had I not seen you put it on, I would have no idea it was you."
"Good," Leia purred, "a little mystery is in order for tonight."
Everyone in attendance would be wearing masks, costumes were optional. The merrymaking would go on all evening. Though the masks would come off for the solemn ceremony at galactic midnight, soon after the masks would be donned again; each known to each would resume dancing, mingling, conversing politely, and enjoying the delectable food and drink until dawn.
Rey did not fully understand the tension surrounding the event being held on Coruscant. The planet was home to the Jedi Temple and the Republic Senate for centuries. The Empire, in its comparatively short reign, had succeeded in wiping these places from the surface of the planet and the memories of those who were old enough to have lived beside them. The tinsel of the Empire still hung leaden over the planet. There were those who thought it still held too many ties to the Empire, too many weaknesses that could be exploited by the First Order.
"It is time," the General held out her hand for Rey and together they walked out of the salon, down the halls, towards the grand ballroom. Her anxiety increased the closer they came to the ballroom. Leia had tried to teach her how to dance in the traditions of Aldderan, but Rey kept taking the lead. Her form had been good, but there was too much aggression in it. Rey was hoping to hide out on the sidelines, tasting everything on offer, and dancing with no one save Chewie. Perhaps she would dance with Poe. They had met at Finn's bedside and were fast friends.
The General held her hand firmly; preventing her protégée's escape, and came to the grand arch: the threshold to the grand staircase leading down into the immense ballroom. Rey's heart pounded as the Master of Ceremonies boomed out the titles and styles of Leia Organa, knowing her own introduction to be next.
"Presenting the Honorable Mistress Rey of Jakku," and the General let go of her hand and seemed to glide down the steps without walking. Rey was alone at the top of the staircase. How silly it was, to be announced when one was wearing a mask for anonymity, but no one was really looking up at her. It gave her enough courage to scamper down the staircase after Leia, remembering to hold up her gown like she had practiced to avoid falling down the stairs, tearing her dress, and landing on her face. The General's hand graced the banister, not holding it, but alighting against it. Rey was reminded from Leia's lessons on this very staircase to walk down on the balls of her feet and to hold her head high.
"Walk like you are carrying water," Leia had said and Rey looked at her without understanding. Undeterred by the cruel ignorance of poverty Rey faced on Jakku, the General had ordered a bowl full of water and made Rey walk the halls with it. The bowl was ceramic, heavy, and sloshed water around its blue glazed lip like a slobbering Hutt. It was not that Rey wanted to spill the water, water was still precious to her even after having access to an abundance of it, but she watched it swirl and swirl until it spilled onto the hall carpet.
"Look up. Relax your shoulders. Straighten your back. Keep your hips fluid. Walk lightly," was the General's advice and with enough practice Rey had finally learned to walk without spilling the water.
"Walk like you are carrying water," Rey muttered under her breath as she descended the staircase.
As soon as the General reached the floor she was swallowed up by sycophants and hangers-on. Rey wanted no part of that simpering party and edged off to the side, seeking out delicious little novelties and spirits. She always asked the waiter what it was before sampling the little delicacies. The other week she had embarrassed herself by putting something in her mouth that was "not food, but decoration," and the poor servant was just as embarrassed as she.
Lingering by the wall, she stuffed her face and sipped her intoxicating drink. Rey watched the dancers beyond the clumps of courtiers. She was looking for Poe Dameron in his dress uniform. While Finn was still in a coma, Rey and Poe bonded by degrees over repeated, overlapping vigils.
Rey sees Chewie first, head and shoulders above most and dancing with a tall, handsome human woman he still manages to dwarf. Suddenly feeling out of place, the food stuck in the back of her throat, Rey swallowed the last of her liquor hard. She should not be here.
Rey should be with Luke Skywalker, learning the ways of the Force, becoming a Jedi. On Ach-To he took the lightsaber, thanked her for its return, and refused to teach her. Dismissed her and just like that, she belonged nowhere again. The belonging Maz had promised, the belonging she had hoped to find with Skywalker, was gone. The only marginal comfort Rey had was her place in the Resistance piloting the Millennium Falcon.
Truly, she did not want to fight; she wanted peace. Rey wanted pleasant company, plenty of food, soft clothes, and a nice place to shelter. She had all these things with Leia Organa, but something was missing. That grand sense of purpose that sparked within her was without a constructive conduit for outlet. Rey felt like she was wasting her potential.
Lost in thought, Rey did not notice a tall stranger in a grotesque, black, bird mask sidle up to her.