"Don't you have some Princess work to do?"
Han meant nothing by it, Leia noted; his question didn't contain the underlying belligerence or self-defense she'd noticed on the Death Star. He was simply curious why Princess Leia of Alderaan was stopping crates from being loaded onto a smuggling freighter like the Falcon, asking for the lid to be removed, counting the contents and making sure the amounts corresponded with what was marked on the inventory screen displayed on the crate.
He wasn't so meticulous. He checked the screen, and marked off on his own data board that it was stowed, but he didn't check the contents to make sure the inventory was correct.
"I'm curious as to your idea of Princess work," Leia responded dryly, in the same tone she would use in the Senate to put someone in their place.
Princess work, she thought. If it were today, which it was, but not the same today as it should have been... she took a big breath. The Senate would still be in session. Leia would wake in the family apartment on Coruscant, and she would check her schedule with the two maidens who helped her coordinate the day.
She had two maidens, she thought suddenly. Two. On Alderaan she'd have twelve, but some had curious duties, like linens. They must have been bored, she thought now.
She shook her head, getting back to the day. Two maidens was not excessive. One managed the social calendar and the other her business calendar. She would eat, dress, go to the chambers. Mon Mothma's chair would be empty, but she might send a vote in by proxy. Then it was meetings. Listen to pleas by offworld Alderaani. She remembered meeting the parents of a young student at the University of Coruscant. He had disappeared. The parents felt it had something to do with his recent anti-Imperial rhetoric; the father had warned him. "You can't call attention to the Empire without calling attention to yourself," the father told his son. They asked Leia to intercede because they felt that the authorities weren't doing enough, they weren't serious enough.
Their hands were so expressive, she remembered. The way they held them out, imploring her, asking her to take their weight of worry, of fear. They had traveled all the way from Alderaan...
"'There once was a queen," Han recited, "and the last time she was seen, she was in her tower, counting her power. But the king stole her ring; in a fury she was led, and so she chopped off his head.' Like that," Han finished.
"What even is that?" Leia shook her head bemusedly. "There's no mention of a princess. And the cadence is wrong." He had distracted her from the count, and then she had realized the today that should be today would be different anyway, because she was on that diplomatic tour, and she would be heading back to Alderaan...
"It's a... I don't know," Han said. "Kids say it on Corellia. They hold hands and turn in a circle, and when the king loses his head they fall."
"Monarchs don't-" she stopped, because she was going to say behave like that where I'm from, and she couldn't get the words out. All of a sudden, she had no more 'where she was from'; it was an odd feeling, punishing. The place was gone, and it seemed so also were the things she couldn't touch?
It was like a curse; it kept her from talking. Things taken, or prevented. Someone- who, she had no idea, for how could a planet judge someone; the goddesses perhaps- had sentenced her.
"But then the Corellian monarchical period was pretty volatile," Han said, blithely conversational.
Leia managed to say, "There's a difference between rule and power." This crate held fifty pair snow boots. She had already checked in two others like it.
"I suppose." Han had lost interest. "What do you do for this outfit anyway?"
She could answer this; it was permitted. Even Alderaan would approve. If she couldn't, it was because she didn't quite know yet herself. "My role is about to change substantially."
Han snorted. "That goes unsaid." He saw through her deliberate vagueness. "Soon as they give you one, right? You do that thing Luke was talking about? You don't get a duty 'til you're cleared?"
Leia frowned. Luke apparently was talkative. "The CBA. I haven't yet. It's for a return to duty. I've only just enlisted. General Dodonna indicated he just thought it would be helpful, but he didn't say it was mandatory."
Han's eyes were knowing. "It is if they gave it to you. That's how the military works in my experience. They got no flexibility."
Leia gestured for a crate to be opened. "We'll see," she said. The stack of boots was the same height as in the other crates, so she considered it counted. The repulsor cart moved past her.
Han was reading the inventory screen of his own crate. "Gloves, glove liners, snow goggles." He pretended to shudder. "Somplace cold. Don't envy those guys." He waved the cart by. "We didn't have those, when I was in."
Leia looked at him. "Gloves?" she said.
He was looking at her still, and she held his gaze in response. Two conversations were going on. One from his mouth, the second from his eyes. "The Cb thing."
"In the Imperial Navy?" Despite herself, she was interested. She valued the health of the troops; she did, she would insist to... to anyone, even this outlaw freighter captain who was looking at her skeptically. She couldn't explain why she hadn't gotten hers done yet. She was... pulled, in a way, in two directions, making her stand still. A part of her was reluctant and another dismissed it. She was either a quivering, tiny being or she was above it all.
Yet this issue was something her father made sure was addressed by the Alliance. He had been affected by the Clone Wars, she knew. He had told her about the Clone troops, about their unexpected emotionality, and he never forgot what he saw at the Jedi Temple when the Order came under attack. That's why she had told Luke General Kenobi must have been heartbroken, hiding all those years on Tatooine. It was what her father had said.
"Why not, do you suppose?" she asked.
Han shrugged. "The Moffs and Admirals called us 'disposable assets.' Know what we called them?"
Leia smiled slightly, anticipating his answer. "What," she said.
"They came and went as much as us. Pissed Vader off, or the Emperor, and we never saw 'em again. We called 'em Disposable Asses."
"Clever bunch of pilots," Leia was amused. "Do you think there'd have been a beneficial need for something like TRAD?"
"If they make you go, then it's not a weakness," he said. "Duty." He walked over to a cart, his stride loose and limber.
It wasn't an answer to her question. He was talking about something completely different. The individual, not the all. Had he not understood her? "I didn't say I thought it was a weakness," she said. "At all. That's not what I was talking about. I was saying when you were in, if-"
"Sure you were," Han interrupted. "Beneficial need. If you won't ask for help, can't ask, don't know to ask, well, that's why the agency exists."
Leia frowned. The conversation still seemed sideways. Was he talking about himself? Someone he knew?
A cart pulled up in front of her and the driver waited expectantly, used to Leia's thoroughness. She stared unseeing, still trying to work it out. And just who was this 'you', she wondered. With his informal style of speech, it wasn't clear. An unnamed individual? It could be anybody. Even her. Her eyes lifted to him with dawning realization.
It was her. Of all the- his eyes, looking at her like that, and getting her to say that about TRAD, and all the time he'd bugged her about the medscan, and Luke, Luke! talking to him about the CBA. That time at breakfast when they were talking...
She crossed her arms and put her weight on one hip. "When do you see Luke?" she said frostily. The cart driver looked between her and Han. Then he shrugged and put the cart in gear. It lurched forward toward Han.
Han hadn't expected her to cut right to the chase, and she savored her triumph. "Probably before he leaves. I'll bump into him somewhere. I'm told I've got drops at four of the bases." He located the crate number, opened his inventory board and started to check it against the screen. Then he grinned slyly. "But I've got his comm."
"Very good, Captain," she said crisply. "From now on you two oafs can talk to me, not about me. Is that clear?"
Leia stomped off, feeling like she'd won and lost at the same time, knowing she was going to get the CBA done, angry with them, angry with herself, angry at whoever would do it, angry with the whole damn Alliance.
"Can I at least tell him that, Your Worship?" Han shouted at her back, fun in his voice, but she didn't turn around.