Leia, having been in hiding so long, took in the beautiful cityscape from the sprawling window of her allocated palace apartment; every winking light, every passing cloud, every individual story bundled into the back of a cruising hovertaxi or packed hoverbus.

How long had it been since she'd last set foot on Coruscant? Maker, was it her senatorial days? When Ben was little more than a child? An abandoned, pining child? No… He would've been under Luke's wing yet maybe… Or… Just before the Resistance was founded? When I resigned? I can't remember. It doesn't matter. I'm here now. Maybe not for Ben, I don't think I can help him… But someone else just as important…

So distracted and fascinated was Leia that the intrusion went unnoticed. For a moment, at least, until the visitor could not contain his brimming glee any longer.

"Hey neighbour! How you like your cell?!"

Forehead creased, the voice had registered but momentarily, the General's thoughts had lapsed with her surroundings, so memory took a back seat. However, when she turned and caught sight of a very familiar (if somewhat uncharacteristically dressed, almost Lando-esque) pilot making an ecstatic beeline for her, the Princess-turned-General could scarcely remember joyous relief like it.

"Poe!" Delighted and stunned, Leia practically fell into her Commander's outstretched arms, but after a long, tight embrace, she released him again to hold him at arm's length; a scrutinizing arm's length. "You… You look-!"

"Chunky, Leia. Just say it, I look chunky." Unfazed and with his usual good-natured humour, the meat of Poe's cheeks pulled upwards to that trademark, roguish grin that had become synonymous with the Best Pilot in the Resistance; something Leia found herself grateful to see. At least Poe, unlike many of the others, had landed on his feet.

Poe Dameron, her all-but-adopted son, did not look like he scraped by on a Resistance-provided diet of protein packs and ration bars any longer. Rather, good (and regular) meals had ensured he filled out in a way he truly deserved: Healthy, strong and glowing. Then again, it should have come as no surprise, not when Leia had gotten a preview of it herself when the Empress had insisted upon loading up a plate and ordering more. If she had received such treatment, surely Lucilla's own cousin, her only living blood relative outside of her daughter, could expect the same and much, much more?

"You look good." She clarified, benign and endeared by her friend's obvious wellbeing; palace life clearly agreeing with him. The observation, delirious at the reunion, appeared mutual with little being said to make way for the bombarding of emotions; those spoke louder than any words.

"I'm glad you're here." Almost brimming and genuine in his sentiment, the Resistance pilot-turned-Imperial advisor could scarcely believe this bizarre turn of events; less so if Leia told him how they occurred. For the longest moment, they watched each other, taking each other in in a bid to establish how the other had changed during their separation. Finally, Poe bridged the marinating silence to mirror the accommodation he had learned from his little cousin.

"Let me know when you get settled; tomorrow, maybe. There's some people I want you to meet. And BB-8. He'll wanna see you too."

Meanwhile, on a com call between Coruscant and Arkanis…

"It's been insane here, darling, you have no idea! The palace is in an absolute frenzy!"

The usual night-time com call, complete with a state-of-the-art hologram, twisted the young woman's face into an amused beam as she picked pins out of her hair; he embodied endearment in his excitement. The pins met the dish with tiny, dinging pings but did not cover up her husband's enthusiasm.

"General Leia Organa has been "arrested" but she's in an apartment overlooking the city, no one seems to know why. Ren's appeared from nowhere, the Empress took a verbal chunk out of him and again, no one knows why. THEN the Grand Marshal arrived amid it all! Honestly, you should be here! The drama has no end!"

"It sounds to me that the last thing the palace needs is more newcomers." Make up removal underway and clear on the General's end of the hologram, he too went about his bedtime routine. Playful scepticism soon followed, however. "And the big, bad Supreme Leader let the little Empress take a "verbal chunk" out of him, did he?"

"Nothing new there. He's rather docile where Lucilla and Lilia are concerned." He took great pride in that uniform, possibly more than others he shared a rank with. Not because he had earned it, he could admit he fell short on that, but the gratitude for the opportunity. The gratitude for said opportunity to prove himself seemed to outweigh the self-importance of any of the colleagues that felt his lack of experience did not reflect the burden of the likes of the stuck-up Pryde aside, be it dressing or undressing, the General did so with immense care. Even then, as his wife divided her attention between her own reflection and her beloved's hologram, the sight of him running his hands down his coat to prevent creases on the hook prompted her dimples to punctuate her cheeks.

"And don't be silly, my love. The Empress always has great time for you. She's been saying for months that you should come."

Dark eyes, dark hair, dark skin and almost always constantly smiling; Yvette had an automatic knack for sending Dopheld's heart aflutter. Ever before he made General, even Captain, she had always been there to encourage him and boost him. Now that he held a rank he never thought he would see (especially when delivering bad news to Kylo Ren had always been left to him) and commanding a Star Destroyer, he could finally give her everything she deserved. Except, perhaps, for a husband who was always present. The com calls served as a replacement during his absences, but it meant Yvette had more time for engaging in her own hobbies and pastimes; hobbies and pastimes that Dopheld both advocated and provided for.

"I think she has enough on her plate at the moment, don't you?"

"Well, Princess Lilia was a year old this week-"

"Mmm. I saw it on the holonews."

"How old was she when you saw her last? You won't know her, darling, she's gotten so big! She's walking, talking… or trying to… She becomes more like her mother every day."

"From what I saw, the Grand Marshal didn't get a look in." Pins removed, it made for Yvette's mass of inky coils to be teased out with careful brushing that much easier; colliding with the white of a silk nightdress in the most spectacular way. "She's Lucilla's little double."

"That's a common observation around the palace, to be sure. I have heard the theory from more than one person that she may not be his at all."

Yvette, kind, beautiful, gentle, patient Yvette, blew an overwhelmed exhale onto the mirror; scandal indeed. On the hologram, she took special notice, General Dopheld Mitaka had begun the most interesting and intimate layer of his undressing. Out of the corner of her deep, brown eyes, she watched with coy attentiveness.

"Now, that would send the palace into a tizzy."

"I highly doubt it though. They're devoted to each other, even if they do have their spats like every other couple."

"I would venture that to be more than a spat, Dopheld. And they're not every other couple. The Grand Marshal and the Empress? The most-watched couple in the galaxy? Mismatched and all as they are? What's the age difference again? Ten years?"

"Something like that, yes. But it doesn't feel like it to look at and listen to them. They could be the same age almost to someone who doesn't know them."

Yvette, listening intently, even if the hologram suggested otherwise, massaged a pricey night-time moisturiser into her skin; guiding and sculpting it around her hairline and eyebrows with care.

"Well, my love, before our com call can be mysteriously intercepted and we're both prosecuted for treasonous gossip, let me ask you something more relevant to us."

"What might that be?"

"When are you coming home?"

Meanwhile, in the Empress' Chambers…

"Just when I think you're starting to see sense…" Orion, weary and at a loss, unwittingly mimicked his General and dressed for bed while his wife waited; tucked up and ready to retire. However, instead of her raven head swivelling at the vaguest, subtlest whiff of challenge, Lucilla simply rolled those eyes of the most magnificent sapphire. "You go and do this. Your cousin I could understand, darling, even if I didn't agree with it, but her…"

The half-hearted, sort-of scolding received little more than a tut from the vast expanse of a royal bed; the same one she had found herself lost in without a certain Grand Marshal to snuggle. True, Lilia had been there but Lucilla nesting with her daughter and cosying up with her husband were two very different things. Candles mostly extinguished and curtains drawn around her side of the bed, the little Empress could only spy her favourite redhead through his open side.

"I'm not arguing with you, little dove." He disclaimed, perching his pale behind on the edge to wiggle a pair of sleep pants over his chalky hips. "I can't, my brain is beyond fried after today. Even if I could, I know it to be futile."

"Good. I don't want to fight; we've been doing too much of it lately." An understatement. Or… Perhaps not, just the cause of the disquiet seemed to be more severe than a standard lover's quarrel.

"At least we agree on something." Eventually hauling himself into bed (without the need for the steps that his wife utilized), Orion drew the last of the curtains and settled into the closeness a marital bed was supposed to provide; despite its size. Only then, in said closeness, did Orion realize something. "Where's Lilia?"

The purred answer should have given him a clue. If that didn't, the reshuffling of his little dove to close what small distance remained between them and the coy observance from below his shoulder.

"With her night nanny."

"I see… And why is she with her night nanny?"

"Because you and I haven't had much alone time recently, have we?" The credit chip finally dropped for the Grand Marshal when the adoring strokes of his (now more impressive and flawlessly groomed) beard resumed from a few nights previous. A welcome turn of events? From what he expected to be a normal bedtime? Absolutely.

Lucilla had planned to spend the night with her husband; one of those elements of planning had included arranging the night nanny. Among the others (a bath, more sensual nightwear than usual and dismissing Annah earlier than her regular shift allowed), she had promised herself that Ren would not factor into their evening of reconciliation; be it in the flesh or mere thoughts of him intruding. As far as the little Empress was concerned, it had not happened at all, so why think on it?

Orion, and only Orion, had the right to her that Ren had muscled in on in a blip of misjudgement.

Now, naturally, should it be revealed, the dark-haired darling would deal with it as she felt fit but… is there not something to "let sleeping dogs lie"? What he did not know would not hurt him? Unless he found out from a less savoury source and not from her directly, in which case it would very much destroy him. Something Lucilla would rather not do.

"No, not recently, no." The subsequent pressing of suggestive lips to his jaw cemented it though those did not last long; not when he wasted no time in circumventing their path with his own before taking the initiative upon himself to flatten her to the pillows. "You're sure…?"

"Mmm… We have lost time to make up for. And I fear those sleep pants may have been a premature addition to your person."

"It's funny you should mention that, angel. I was just thinking the exact. same. thing."