PublicPrivate

by Keryl Raist

This is the third book in the Tao-of-The-Force-verse series. If you haven't read Tension/Balance or Rumors/Gossip, it's not going to make a lick of sense. If you have... We're starting off right where we left off. The First Year parties are ending, the Order is coming into it's own, and Rey and Kylo...

47. New Alderaan

4/10/2

"I have our itinerary," Ellie says, passing a datapad to Rey. Today, she's in Kylo's office, sitting with Ellie and Threepio, being 'briefed' because the day after tomorrow, they're leaving for New Alderaan, and her first, (second) official, outing as the Mistress of the Maji.

Rey reads.

4/12/2, New Alderaan.

Leaving at 09:00.

Arrive 12:00 Supremacy Time, 16:00 New Alderaan Local.

Formal Greeting 17:00.

Introductory reception: 17:30.

Formal Supper 18:30

Retire for Evening 22:30

Informal Meeting with Queen 09:00.

Formal Breakfast with the Ruling Council 10:00

Head home 12:00.

There are small write ups on what each of those things is, and for the first bit, that's what Rey's reading. What they expect her to do, not when they expect her to do it, but after a few moments, she notices the times.

"We're going overnight?" Rey says, looking at the schedule.

"Is that a problem?" Ellie asks. "I know you have the children in your care, but with Kylo staying… wherever it is you go when you're not here, and your other friends, I—"

Rey shakes her head. She did clear time for this, but… She'd intended to be at home, sleeping, with Kylo, at night. "It's… not. I guess." She does have Poe and Rose and Finn in place, so the kids won't be on their own, but… "We're sleeping there?"

Ellie nods. "That is the idea. Traveling time means that we'll arrive close to what the locals consider late afternoon. There'll be a welcome dinner, which will normally be just sitting around and talking, but Threepio suggested that you wanted to know more about what made Alderaan Alderaan, so there will be a historical/cultural briefing during the dinner. They'll offer you the highlights of who they are and who they want you to understand them to be. Then we'll break off for the night. Sleeping time. Which, I'll recommend you try to sleep, even though your internal clock will think it's early evening. Then breakfast where we'll get to actually talk some with the inner circle and go over some of the things that didn't make it into the treaty. And off we go. We'll get home a little after you'd normally have breakfast."

Rey's first thought is to say "No." This is nervous making enough without having to go overnight, but…

Ellie's watching, carefully. Rey can feel this is some sort of a test. And, for once, she's got the sense that Threepio is in on it, too.

"Is Pat coming along with us?" That's a… sideways way of flanking the issue. Maybe.

"Of course not, dear. He's got things to handle here. You, me, General Threepio. Colonel Jefferies, who actually wrote the treaty. We won't see much of him. He'll spend his time with his opposite number among the New Alderaan delegation. I believe we'll have two pilots and a squad of security, as well."

Threepio nods; she's correct about that.

"We're taking security to New Alderaan." That's distracting her from the overnight part of it. She's seen Order security, and the idea that they're going to walk in there with a pile of white-armored stormtroopers knocks the wind out of her.

It looks like Ellie is grasping the first aspect of the issue. "I believe we'll refer to them as our retinue. We will claim that they are servants of some sort, and a personal secretary who will take notes. They will not be formally armed or armored, though they will be the sorts of men who can kill a squad with a water glass and a spoon if need be."

Rey blinks.

"They will be experts in hand to hand unarmed martial combat, and at turning mundane objects into lethal weapons," Threepio says.

Rey's still blinking. "We're taking security to New Alderaan?" That, of course, would be the other aspect of it. Not just how it looks but… the idea that they might even need it.

Ellie inhales swiftly as she grasps the issue. "Oh, yes. The chance of anything happening of an untoward nature is extremely low. That said, it is an entire planet, and we have not kept the fact that you are going to visit a secret. There is no chance at all that anyone connected officially to the government of New Alderaan will lift an eyelid, let alone a finger, against us—"

"But people connected to the official government of New Alderaan are not the only people who will be on planet, and like with all governmental buildings in New Alderaan, the public has free access to the palace. It would be… astonishingly easy for someone to land people on the planet, and then stroll on into the palace and take a shot at us," Threepio says.

Rey does not find that comforting. On several levels.

"And thus, security." Ellie says, "We will not call attention to them, and the Alderaanians will pretend to not know why they're actually with us, but everyone will understand why they're there."

"Couldn't I just bring my light staff?"

Ellie looks appalled. Threepio sighs, "No."

"But we can bring guards."

"Yes," Threepio responds.

"I do not understand." Which is just the barest hint of a scratch on the tip of this whole puzzling thing, right now.

Threepio and Ellie look at each other, and Threepio's the one who decides to take a stab at explaining this. "You openly carrying a weapon absolutely shatters the image of you as a peacemaker. More importantly, it shatters the fiction that we trust them. On top of that, I've carefully curated a collection of outfits for you that will attempt to make them see you and think of Leia, of Old Alderaan, and the Organa line, of a better, and yes, fictional time, and how working with us can get them closer to that 'golden-hued history,' and a weapon just wouldn't do."

Rey looks confused. "A weapon wouldn't do for General Organa."

"Again, it's an image, not reality," Threepio says with a sigh. "Princess Leia, golden child of the glory days of Alderaan, not General Organa, who got involved in dirty, mucky politics where people did nasty things like kill each other."

Ellie's amused by this. "Leia Organa was, according to our records, a better shot with a pistol than Han Solo or Luke Skywalker, but I daresay that's not the image the General is going for for this meeting."

Rey looks surprised at that, but Threepio nods. "I wasn't along for too many fire fights, but… From what I saw and heard, that's accurate. That said, she was not a pilot. Decent gunner when needs be, but not a flier."

She shakes her head a little. "Okay." Rey looks back at the schedule. "Why are we dealing with transit time?"

"You mean why aren't we teleporting, or why, because we're in a ship, are we not putting the ship closer to Alderaan? Perhaps close enough to allow you to snooze with your man?" Ellie asks.

Rey feels sheepish, but she owns up to it. "The latter."

"Because parking the Supremacy on top of New Alderaan, with its collection of City Killers, doesn't make them feel like we mean it when we say we're offering a Non-Aggression pact. Trust me, the Supremacy will be, at most, twenty minutes from us, and the security with us will be able to hold off anything short of a thermo-nuclear attack for at least half an hour, but we're going to take a slower path, because no one on planet wants our biggest guns hovering right above them."

Threepio's sitting quietly, listening, and then says, "For, obvious reasons, New Alderaan has an… intense… series of buffer defenses throughout it's system. It's not enough to stop us, in this ship, though going through would hurt, but you can't get to within a light year of it without triggering their attack systems."

"So, the Supremacy will be?" Rey asks.

"Knowing your husband and mine, literally hovering on the edge of Alderaanian territory, exactly one millimeter away from where their sensor range ends, and ready to jump to hyperspeed with most of the armada at a word."

"I thought they were peaceful." At least, even Threepio's image-shattering 'real version' of things didn't do anything to disabuse that idea. After all, in Rey's world, people who are looking to upend the political powers that be have a much wider range of tools at their disposal than rumor and innuendo.

"They are. They're also extremely well-defended by a wide-ranging series of satellites capable of producing lasers that'll cut most ships in half from the far side of the system. And several other mechanisms will throw so much flack into space that any lasers we aim at them will have lost significant power before reaching the planet."

"And my guess is, the day Starkiller fired, they began coming up with new ways to bend the light and bleed off the energy of a laser weapon. I know our shields use technology along those lines, so I can't imagine they aren't doing something similar," Ellie says.

"Once you get on planet, weapons are few and far between," Threepio adds, "but getting on planet is the issue."

"Oh," Rey says.

"They absolutely will not fire on us, Lady Ren," Threepio says. "They wouldn't think of it."

Rey smirks at that. "You did. And I did." And she doesn't mention, that if Pat thinks keeping the Supremacy as close as humanly possible is a good idea, obviously he thinks that someone might take a shot at them, too.

"But we are not New Alderaan."

Ellie's watching Rey, and thinking about what she knows about Rey and Kylo as Rey and Kylo, and about their magic. "When we get there, that first hour will be us being escorted to our rooms, given some time to relax and change, unpack if we so desire. Those rooms will be at the very least, wired for sound. They may be wired for video, too."

Rey's eyes close slowly as she drops her head down. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. Then she looks up. "You're saying that they'll be, at least, listening, the entire time I'm there."

"Yes. And they'll likely get… worried, if you suddenly vanish in the middle of the night."

Rey grits her teeth again. "Lovely. And if the room is wired for visuals, they'll likely be very surprised if someone suddenly joins me out of nowhere."

"Also correct," Ellie replies. "On the upside, if you're feeling like testing how closely they're watching you, having someone show up in the room you're supposed to be alone in would certainly do it."

Another sigh.

"But, then you'll have to answer questions on how he got there," Threepio says.

"Does this… have to be overnight? Can't I… I don't know, sleep in my ship?"

"That would be an appalling breech of hospitality. Part of doing this overnight, which is intentional, is a sign that we trust them to guard our sleep. Yes, true, we will have our own guards, but even guards cannot manage against all the mischief they could do if they so desired. This, more than the treaty, more than our words, shows that we are going with good intentions, and that we expect them to treat us with hospitality. If you leave during the night, we might as well not go." Threepio says. "It's one night, Lady Ren. You'll manage."

Rey sighs. "Of course, I'll manage. I don't want to have to."

Ellie pats her hand. "We'll keep that under consideration for further ones of these."

"Meaning?" Rey says.

"Well, sending an heir to the throne of a society we claim we're not about to do anything with is… rude. That said, there's only two places," Neither of them miss the way Threepio jerks to attention at that, "where Kylo cannot go right now, without causing a fuss, so for all the rest of them, we'll send him along, too."

"I'd appreciate that," Rey says, looking at the itinerary.

---

"It's overnight," Rey says to Kylo.

He looks at her for a moment, and then blinks. There's another silent moment in which his brows furrow and he rolls his lips. "But, you'll come back, right?"

"I'm not supposed to." She settles herself into his lap, and he wraps around her. "Leaving would be… rude. A sign we don't trust them to protect me."

Kylo can feel she's not thrilled on this, so he's fairly sure what the right answer isn't, but he's got to try. "So… I go to you."

She hates the way this feels. "They tell me that the rooms are wired for sound and maybe video… And…"

"They'll notice if you suddenly have a guest in the middle of the night?" Kylo's lips roll again. "And… I imagine me suddenly popping up out of nowhere would likely cause a stir."

Rey offers him a limp half-smile. And a nod. "Depending on how good their security, and ours is, someone suddenly materializing in my room might involve a few squads of extremely armed people rushing in to remove said person from my room."

"Bloody right they will!" He glares. He wants to be able to sneak in. He wants every gun on the fucking planet to be aimed at anyone else who might attempt to sneak into Rey's room. And unfortunately, he doesn't know how to align those two things to his liking.

More glaring.

Another slow blink. And gritted teeth.

Then Kylo says, "I know, rationally, that we're talking about one night. I know that, in the grand scheme of things this is, not a big deal."

She nods.

"I hate this."

"Me, too."

---

4/12/2

They're lingering over breakfast.

Rey's got time, they aren't leaving for a bit, and she doesn't have to be at the landing bay until 08:00, and Kylo's position on the subject is that the entire rest of the universe and whomever has his first appointment of the morning can fuck off royally while he sees her off.

(It's possible he's moping. It's likely she's encouraging it.)

They hear the rap of C8's knuckles on the door to their room, and then it slides open along with "Grand Marshall Frakes, Master, Mistress," and Jon heads in.

Rey blinks a little. They aren't exactly dressed. Kylo's in his pj pants, and she's in her robe.

"Come on, you can't be late for this." He lays a black garment bag on the bed, and heads over toward them at the breakfast table.

Kylo's the one who jerks into motion first. "What are you doing here?"

"Ellie didn't feel comfortable intruding, and it wouldn't have occurred to Threepio to do it, so here I am. Getting you two moving. Because," and he looks at them in their jammies, "it doesn't take a navigator to figure out neither of you were going to be excited about this."

"Does this really have to happen?" Kylo asks.

Jon sighs a bit, sits at the table next to them, and pulls a muffin and the butter to him. "Honestly, at this point, yes. You can back out of a lot of things, but this is the first one, and it's important, and everyone else in the galaxy is watching—"

"Not helping," Rey says.

"Oh, please. This is whiffle compared to the K'Arans. You've got this, Rey. That said, another part of people watching is what happens when you leave. This isn't Poe heading off from some miscellaneous flight deck. This is the Lady of the Order leaving on her first, real, diplomatic mission. People are going to be watching."

"You mean we don't get to say goodbye in private," Rey says.

Jon nods. He takes a bite of his muffin. "Which is why I'm here, having a bite, giving you a heads up. And reminding both of you to dress nicely for this bit here." He nods to the bag. "Outfit for you in there, Rey. You'll escort her to the ship, and then say your goodbyes, and then you'll go back to work, and she'll hang out with us for a bit while we get all the rest of the stuff ready to go."

"How many people will be watching?" Rey asks.

"Just our local newsie net. They'll film, and then broadcast, and then other newsies'll pick it up. That's the idea of this, right? Handsome Princing the shit out of it. So, go, give each other a good goodbye kiss: warm, affectionate, possibly lingering, but no tongue, and then off you go."

Kylo and Rey both sigh at that. Finally, Kylo says, "That's the most bizarrely specific set of instructions I've ever gotten."

"I'll bet," Jon replies, chewing. "These are pretty good." He swallows. "You're selling romance right now. The great romance of both the two of you, and also the long-lost Prince Ben sending his bride off to his homeland to make nicey-nice with them. So, romance, good. Sex, not so much, not on this one."

Rey raises an eyebrow. "So, you're saying there will be times when tongue kissing in public will be appropriate?"

"I'm not going to rule it out." He pats Kylo on the shoulder, stands up, and then kisses Rey's cheek. "Okay, I'm going to go linger in your office for a while. You two get dressed and ready to start Handsome Princing."

Rey and Kylo stare at each other, and then sigh.

---

Threepio joins them as they leave the elevator doors. He doesn't say much, just falls into step, sort of, with them. He keeps up well enough, but he doesn't have the long, easily measured step of the other three.

"It's not my shuttle," Kylo finally says when he sees which ship the droid is moving them toward.

"Of course not. Your shuttle is a battle command ship. This one is a BR-AH-09. It's a top of the line personal cruiser, and, if you were above, and could see the wings, you'd see it's branded uniquely, for Lady Ren's personal transport," Threepio says.

Jon smiles a bit. "They could see it from under, too." Jon nods to Rey's pendant. "The Order of the Maji. Anything that moves you around is branded with that mark. The wings have the Order Hex on it, and the circle in the hex has the Maji spiral."

Kylo feels a flush of pleased warmth at that, and realizes that it's both his own, and also Rey's.

Jon grins at her. "One of the things she said to the K'Aar, which I really liked, was that her power was her own, not yours reflected. That you weren't her Master, and… Well, we're sending you off to a matriarchy, so how better to do that with your own symbol, your own style? We'll show that you're there on Order behalf, but that you are in and of yourself, a power to be reckoned with."

Rey does smile at that.

As they get a little closer, they noticed the two rows of six stormtroopers lining the way to the hatch. They also notice that the twelve of them are also wearing the Order of the Maji mark.

They're getting close enough to be overheard, so Jon keeps his voice lower as he says, "I didn't think that you'd mind if your lady had her personal escort."

Kylo nods.

"And did you think about what I'd think about it?" Rey asks.

"Yes. I assumed you'd be about as thrilled as he is to wander around with a guard trailing him, but, again, this is for the look of it. Anything you go on by yourself, you will have a huge armed guard for. We're not advertising that you can level a man with a glance, because we'd prefer that if you have to do it, whoever you do it to won't expect it. If we could have kept that quiet for him, I would have welcomed it, but that ship's already jumped to hyperspace, so…"

Rey sighs. "Fair enough. The weapon they don't know about is the one they can't deflect."

"Exactly. So, where you're off being the Pretty Lady, you'll look about as dangerous as the average flower." Jon offers up a pleasant smile. "Just remember, a lot of those pretty flowers are poisonous, and more have thorns."

"Who picked them?" Kylo asks.

Threepio answers, "General Kinear did, personally, though C8 approved all of them."

That makes Kylo feel a little better. The fact that they're at the base of the hatch, and she's about to walk up that thing, and then he's going to just be stuck, here, with bugger all to keep himself properly busy… doesn't.

Jon gives his hand a quick, and discrete squeeze before heading up the hatch with Threepio.

Rey smiles up at him, but it's not a real, happy view. She thinks to him Where do you think the newsie is?

He glances around, but doesn't see anything that's obviously recording them. No idea. His hands come to cup her face. I'll miss you.

I know.

He rests his forehead against hers, and she wraps her arms around him.

One night. Her thought as she holds him close, and buries her head against his chest.

His chin over her head, and he holds her to his heart. One night.

She pulls back a little, and kisses him, sweet and hard, and he, just because he can, does lick into her mouth, his tongue caressing hers before pulling back.

She breaks the kiss, looking up at him, giggling a little, touching his face, and he does have a bit of a smile on his face aimed at her. They kiss one more time, a brief caress of lip on lip, and then she steps back, turns away, and heads up the ramp to go Lady Ren the hell out of it.

Kylo stands there for a moment, watches her head up and in, and then turns to go back to the rest of his life.

---

It is a nice ship.

Certainly the fanciest one she's ever been in. Granted, she hasn't been in a lot of ships, but this one is… nice.

She's on the bottom level right now, and can feel that just standing here is slowing things down. The stormtroopers have things they want to move into this area, including themselves, but they're nervous about crowding her, so they're all lingering, having a bit of a mental breakdown at the cognitive dissonance between orders (load the ship, get in, travel) and showing proper respect to Lady Ren (acting like she's made of spun glass and the merest hint of getting close to an inappropriate touch or remark will result in immediate death.)

Rey rolls her eyes, snorts inelegantly, feels a certain level of satisfaction at the feel of two of the stormtroopers just about passing out at that, and is very tempted to fart at them, but decides that's probably a bit too much being a real person, and heads up the spiral staircase to the second level of the ship.

"Why are we bringing so much stuff?" Rey asks once she's up there. Upstairs is even nicer. There's a lounge, a bar, a gaming table, a huge projector for entertainment. Threepio is already in there, next to an open box, programming a hairdressing droid.

There were huge bags of… stuff downstairs, and a few boxes, and… Her idea of bring themselves and a treaty does not require multiple metric tons of stuff going along with them.

"Because no one on Alderaan ever used one meter of fabric if fifteen were available," Jon replies, hopping back down to grab… whatever it is he's about to grab.

Meaning it's her, Threepio, the hair and makeup droid, and several people moving around getting things ready.

"We are going, in, as best we can, local style," Threepio adds. "We are… gently reminding them that Kylo Ren is the only legitimate heir of the Royal Alderaanian line, and as such, his wife, Lady Ren, Princess Rey, will be given the proper respect."

"And you are taking a certain satisfaction in coming back and rubbing their faces in it?"

He'd smile, but he can't. "Yes, I am." He lifts the hair droid up, and gestures for Rey to sit. "This will take some time, Lady Ren, but we will have you looking the part before we land."

"Threepio…"

"We are not in private, Mistress."

Rey glances around, and yes, there are two pilots, and a few attendants, and, she's not entirely sure who everyone on the ship are.

"Will you introduce me, General?"

Threepio can't blink, but it's clear that's something that hadn't occurred to him.

"Yes, Lady, I can." Threepio turns to the first of the pilots, "Commander RE-9982, and Lt. Commander Xaviez Ralsh, this is Mistress Rey of the Maji, Consort to your Master. Lady Rey, today we have two of the highest ranked pilots in the Order taking us to New Alderaan. They are both ranked in combat and precision flying, both in low-and non-atmo flight."

Rey smiles at them, and offers her hand. Both pilots freeze, uncertain if they're allowed to touch their Master's lady, but she certainly looks like she expects, it, so… They gently take her hand in turn, very nervous as they nod to her.

"I thank you for the ride," Rey says, and they blush, and decide now is a great time to go check the flight data and ship specs one more time.

When they are, save for the other droids, alone, Rey says to Threepio, "I take it that sort of thing is not common."

"Generally, no. Many leaders treat the people who shuffle them around and make sure the things around them work and are fully staffed like furniture."

"Ah… Threepio, standing orders, any flight I'm part of from now on, any dinner we host, any… thing where there are any sort of sentients working for us, make sure I get introduced to them before whatever it is starts."

"Done, Rey." Again, he can't smile, but she can feel it.

"Threepio?"

"You are reminding me very strongly of… Leia."

Rey understands that pause is Threepio's fast mental struggle to determine how he should refer to his Princess. "She made sure she knew everyone?"

"As much as humanly possible. Her parents did, too. Obviously, on any given day they'd sweep through spaces with thousands of people, so getting to know everyone wasn't possible, but anyone who they personally interacted with, down to the cleaning staff, they made sure to greet and get the names of. It made everyone feel valued and appreciated."

"And that's important."

"It is if you want people to feel secure in your rule. They want to believe you want what's best for them. That's significantly easier to do if you actually know them."

Rey nods. "I'll remember that."

Threepio looks at the stairs, and then shakes his head. He takes his comm, and says, "Major RR-6892, before we hit atmo, Mistress Ren would like to greet you and your men."

She hears the other side of the comm click, followed by "I'll arrange it. Just let me know when the Lady is ready, sir."

"I will."

When the comm closes, she raises a brow to Threepio. "Not now."

He gestures to the hair droid. "Not now. When your hair is done, we'll greet the men."

Rey looks at the droid. "How long will that be?"

Threepio laughs. "Relax, Lady, this will take a while."

The little droid hovers over to her, and begins to play with her hair.

"To start, the braids. In Alderaanian culture, the length of the braid, the intricacies of the twists and turns, the value of the wrappings, all of these things are used to signal to the people around you what your intents are. There are braids for peace, for anger, for accord, for romance, for… Anything you can think to wish to convey."

Rey blinks. "Braids?"

"Some cultures use flowers to send messages, Alderaan used braids," Lady Kinear says, entering the second floor. "Good, you're getting started. Three hours may be cutting it short."

Threepio shakes his head. "Not with today's message. Alderaan of old also used flowers, too. That said, being in deep space, I didn't have the time or contacts to get the right flowers to put in your hair for this, so we're going for the braids and a circlet of silver."

Jon heads up, holding one garment bag like it's priceless. "Do not let this get wrinkled."

"Did you make me a dress for this?" Rey asks.

"For this one, yes. For others, I can probably talk to my mom, but this one..." He shakes his head. "Fortunately, for what the General wanted, there are a lot of images of Leia Organa out being Princess Leia, and even patterns for the outfits available. All I had to do was match your size and update the styles and colors a bit."

He hangs the bag up, and then steps over to Threepio, pulling something black out of his pocket. "Fresh off the sewing machine." He fits a black band around Threepio's arm and fastens it. "Got a nice little slit here for your hydraulics. Okay…" He fiddles with it a bit more. "Good. Perfect. In the Order, your first rank, Ensign, gets a pip," he touches one of his Order Hexes. "Usually, it goes on the cuff of your left sleeve. Next rank, Lt. gets a white stripe on that sleeve. Pip goes on the stripe, or above it if you're between stripe ranks." He taps Threepio's armband, which has three white stripes on the black band. "Three stripes is full Colonel." There's a large silver hexagon over all three of them. "The Order Hex emblazoned on them is your General's mark. I modified yours, given your… past." Threepio can't really shift around enough to see the mark on his armband without a mirror, which is why Jon's explaining it to him. "Like Rey, I gave you an Order of the Maji mark. You've got the Order Hex, with the Maji Spiral in the middle. Unlike mine," he taps his circle, "Or Lady Kinear's," both of which are the white Order circle with the rays slipping inward, bordered with silver, "You've only got the white circle. We've got the ring of silver, because we're both citizens with our full five in."

Threepio would smile if he could. "That was very… thoughtful, Jon." He gently touches where his mark of rank is.

"No problems, General." He sits next to Rey. "Okay, I'm off in a minute." He kisses her cheek, and then quietly says, "And don't worry, I'll keep him out of trouble while you're out."

Rey does smile at that. "I'll look forward to hearing about it."

Jon grins at her. "Oh no. First rule of boys' night out, is thou shalt not speak of boys' night out. It'll die with him and I and Poe."

"You're bringing Poe, too?"

"It sounded like fun." He kisses her cheek again, and flips Threepio and Ellie a lazy salute before heading off. He's just about down the stairs when he turns back, looks at Rey, grins at her, and says, "Just remember, like last time, you can kick everyone's ass at this thing, and they'll get down on their knees and thank you for it if you do."

They're both remembering a prince on the floor gasping for breath, literally thanking her for it and asking for another. Jon lips quiver into a smile, and by now, Rey can find it funny. She smirks a bit too, and says, "Oh, and that worked out so well last time!"

He winks at her, and heads off.

Threepio and Ellie watch him leave.

Rey looks back up to Threepio, trying to ignore the droid fluttering around her head. "Okay, keep going. No flowers. You were saying something about colors?"

"Indeed." He shuffles over to sit next to her. "On Alderaan each major family has it is own colors. The Colors of the Organa line were scarlet, rust, burgundy, mahogany, and deep, warm, dusty reds. In addition to that, the heir apparent wears white and or silver. And you will, whenever you are there, wear them."

"I take it we're not being subtle about my relationship with Kylo, then."

"Not at all, Princess," Threepio says. "We have Lady Kinear here as the Ambassador for the Order. You are going as Lady Ren, Princess of Alderaan."

Rey doesn't wince, but it feels very odd to hear him say that to her.

He nods. "Get used to it. I am going to demand that you be accorded your correct title by marriage while you are there, and I'd rather prefer you didn't fight me on that."

"Don't we… I don't know… need a legally binding Alderaanian marriage or something?"

"The short answer is, no. The longer answer is that when you have that wedding, we will make sure to invite the higher ups of Alderaan to the event. They may claim we're jumping the gun a little, but they also claim to respect the traditions of all faiths, and your faith marries first and has weddings later, so they should, if they attempt to live up to the ideas codified in their constitution, go with it," Ellie says.

---

Hair takes way too long.

"What is it even doing?" It doesn't feel like anything other than her scalp being yanked around is going on.

Threepio looks up from the datapad he's interfacing with.

"It's adding more hair to your hair."

Rey blinks at that. "More?"

"Yes, to get the correct look, you need at least waist length hair. So, right now, it's sewing more hair to your hair."

Rey looks startled. "Will it… come out?"

"Eventually," Ellie replies, also looking up from a datapad. "But for a week or so it'll stay snug to the roots of your hair, and you'll just have very long hair." She looks over a little more carefully. "You've added maroon streaks?"

Threepio nods. "Indeed. The effect, once braided, should be quite striking when the light hits correctly, and rather subtle the rest of the time."

Ellie quirks her head, and goes back to her datapad.

"And what will today's braids be signaling?" Rey asks.

"Today we're sending you in with braids of peace, accord, good wishes, all wrapped up in the traditional seven strand plait of the Organa family."

Rey would like to shake her head, but that sounds like getting poked in the scalp again. "And we're going to say all of that with my hair."

Threepio gives off a sense of self-satisfaction at that. "Yes. For obvious reasons we do not want to attempt to prove that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo through a blood match. It can be done, but…" He waves that away. Ellie watches him carefully, and it's clear he's got to know the Amidala angle, too. "So, we are going to go in, so blatantly, visibly, Organa, that no one in their right mind will ever begin to think about suggesting that you are a fake. There's so much going on here that anyone outside the Organa line just… There are too many fine details for this not to be real."

Rey thinks about that for a moment, and then says, "Is it possible they'll decide you're the pretender?"

It's clear by the way that Threepio's head twitches that that's an idea that never occurred to him. That someone might suggest that he's the puppet master and these humans here are just his toys was just not in his understanding of how things could happen. He thinks more about that, long for a droid, not so long for a human, as he contemplates the idea that, to a certain extent, and to a certain point of view, that's basically what he is doing.

After six seconds, he says, "Well, if they were to suggest it, it would likely mean they've got a decent read on the subject."

---

Rey thinks that the part she's liking least about this is this bit here. There's just… nothing to do but sit and wait.

And get her hair pulled.

"This is really how they do it on Alderaan?"

Threepio looks up at her. "Lady Ren, would you believe me if I tell you that this is a fairly simple style, and that there were some occasions where Princess Leia had to sit for more than half a day while her hair was carefully and intricately braided?"

"I would, but I really hate to imagine it."

She has the sense that Threepio is pleased by that remark.

"She never much liked this part, either. Breha didn't, as well. 'Tradition demands' is a phrase I heard a lot while she was growing up.'"

"In a clipped, sarcastic, under the breath sort of voice?" Rey asks, looking to learn more about Leia.

"Occasionally yelled, too."

Rey sighs at that. "Demands does it? Aren't we," she gestures to indicate the whole Order and everything else, "trying to change things?"

"Well… Yes. But…" He thinks for a millisecond, the pause only noticeable to Rey because she can feel his electronic brain whirl. "Cultures are collections of lived experiences translated into histories and those histories become defining mores for people. A sort of living legend that binds them to each other.

"If we take advantage of those mores, we are more able to get them comfortable and willing to interact with them. We come not as strangers, but as… friends of a friend who we just haven't gotten to know, yet."

Ellie puts her pad down. "Call it the difference between greeting someone in their native language and greeting them in your own, just slower and louder. One of those two things is a lot more likely to make people respect you and what you've got to say."

Threepio nods. "So, we send you in local style, hearkening back to a golden age that only exists in memories and lore. You show up in a friendly, easily digested image. And you do that because you are an outsider. If, and it's a big if, Master Ren were to ever take the throne of Alderaan, and if he managed to do it with enough popular support to be welcomed warmly, then, and only then, could he, and you by extension, begin to start to shift those mores.

"And, honestly, we are going further back than is perfectly fashionable by Alderaanian standards now, but with good reason, our branch of the family has been estranged for a while, and aiming back to when it was a vibrant, living part of the tree, so to speak, will encourage warm feelings about the days of the House of Organa."

"So, I'm…"

"Fifty years out of date, but not exactly. Jon didn't copy the dresses precisely the way Leia wore them. He did update the looks a bit," Ellie says.

Threepio is gazing out at the stars whizzing by them. "Lord Bail had begun to shift things. The braids were getting simpler, and he shocked all of Alderaan by cutting his hair to match the fashion of the Republic. Breha also loosened some of the traditions, allowing Leia what her grandmother would have considered shocking freedoms in her styling and manners."

"I understand the current queen even wears her hair down from time to time, unbound, unbraided, and uncovered. Though she won't today or tomorrow," Ellie replies.

"What do you know about her?" Rey asks.

"Queen Heloise," Threepio says.

"Yes, what's… not in the reports? I know you know things that didn't get written down. Now's the time, right? When we control the sound and we're not in rooms wired to catch all of our thoughts?" Rey asks.

Threepio sighs. "Actually, before we left would have been the time, but…"

"There's distressingly little about Queen Heloise," Ellie says. "We actually…" Ellie looks genuinely distressed by this, like she, personally, failed, "put everything we could find on her in the reports."

Rey looks startled. "Really? You… and all your… whisper listeners… That's… it?"

Ellie has the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Well, she is rather young. It's hard to develop too many interesting secrets by the time you're twenty-three."

Rey blinks at that. "I was twenty-three when I left Jakku."

"And did you have any interesting secrets?" Ellie asks.

"It didn't take me long to begin collecting them," Rey says.

"Indeed. And I'm sure she's got a good number of them, but… The secrets she's collected are about other people, and we do have them. Her own life is… well… You read the reports. She's young, well-liked, has done exactly nothing to ruffle any feathers, and the various factions are happy, enough, with her that they aren't actively plotting to get rid of her, too much, but by throwing Kylo into the mix, things are destabilizing, because maybe she's not the best, or only, bet in town, and…" Ellie waves.

"Here we are, attempting to make it clear that we're not actually throwing Kylo into the mix," Rey says. "While at the same time also making it clear that anyone who prefers Kylo knows where to find him."

Threepio and Ellie nod at that.

Rey sighs. She fiddles with the armrest on the seat for a bit, and then says, "Who's… supposed to be next in line? Am I going to meet them?"

Ellie smiles. "We'll turn you into a politician, yet."

Rey looks alarmed.

"It's a compliment, Rey," Threepio says. "You've made a good leap there. Queen Heloise likely doesn't care nearly as much about Ben Solo being thrown back into the mix as much as Grigory Antillies' parents. Grigory is her, current, most likely successor, until, of course, the Queen marries and has children of her own."

"His parents care more than he does?" Rey asks.

"He is six years old. I daresay his current position of Prince Grigory is a bit nebulous to him," Threepio replies.

Rey thinks about that, and then says, "The ones who aren't trying to get rid of her right now, too much, but could, maybe, decide they wanted to, if things changed. They're the ones who really care about what the once Ben Solo might add to the mix?"

"Right, because he, right here, right now, has, whether he wanted to or not, joined their ranks of people who might benefit immensely if she were to suddenly no longer be Queen. And, of course, any potential child you may have takes that even further into the future, and a wider array of people."

"And I'll meet these people?" Rey says.

"It's likely you'll meet at least some of them. As well as a few who are jealously guarding Queen Helene's position, and hoping for that position to continue on for generations to come," Threepio says.

"But you didn't give me dossiers on all of them and their interests."

"No," Ellie replies. "Two reasons, one: we didn't want to prejudice you ahead of time. It's enough that we know. And two: you'll have a better feel for the impulses and emotions of those around you than our spies can gather, and you going in blind means we'll get a better check on what our spies tell us."

"You don't trust the spies?" Rey asks. Of all the things they've talked about that one confuses her the most.

Ellie smiles. "Not exactly how I'd put it. It's very easy to just get things wrong. Misunderstand, not see all the angles, something like that. Easier yet when you're dealing in rumors, half-heard conversations, and filling in the bits of what isn't said between the lines. A good spy does all of those things, but, good though he may be, he might just be wrong. And if he's been caught… The easiest way to neutralize a spy isn't to terminate him. You leave him in place and tailor your messages to and around him so he sends what you want him to send back to his handlers."

"At last count, there are six hundred and forty-three spies currently active in the ranks of the Order, and we keep close watch on them, and feed them a careful diet of assignments, conversations, reports and whatnot, making sure their handlers get steady intel of exactly what we want them to know," Threepio says. "How many spies we don't know about double checking those reports, assignments, and conversations is the interesting bit, but… That's just running any political organization. As soon as you're a power to be reckoned with, there will be spies."

"Wait, does Kylo know that?"

Threepio would look exasperated if he could. "I do not know, Lady Ren. I can say he has been sent reports about it."

Rey nods, and then closes her eyes, and hopes she looks like she's just pondering these ideas. Speaking of spies, Colonel Jefferies is just quietly sitting there, reading his datapads, not intruding, but he's certainly there.

He was there for the K'Arans, and obviously Threepio trusts him to write up these contracts, but… What does he say, and to whom, about her and the things she's been doing?

Spies.

It takes a few seconds, but then Kylo's voice in her mind responds with, Spies? What's going on?

Did you know there's more than 600 of them, on the Supremacy?

Quiet on his side for a moment, and then. I think I read a report on that.

You read a report and that was that?

She can feel the shrug. Well, it's not like one could wander into my presence without me noticing, and… Kinear wrote the report, and he seemed to think they were useful. He also pointed out that just because we knew about 600 of them, didn't mean there weren't thousands, and given the size of our compliment now, maybe tens of thousands more.

Great.

Yeah, well, at least for the time being, I'm getting them to do work for me, so… Maybe they send reports back, but they still pilot my ships where I want them to go, and keep watch on the Rim, and… All the stuff.

I guess so.

More quiet. How's it going?

Boring. I'm getting my hair done.

Braids?

Lots of braids. She can feel his amusement. What are you doing?

More reports.

I'll let you get back to them.

Thanks. And she feels Kylo's mind fade from hers.

---

As Rey and Colonel Jefferies greet the men downstairs, Ellie quietly says to Threepio, "That's a very Naboon hair piece you added to that look."

"Is it?"

She stares at him coolly.

"Have they taken you deep enough into their confidence to tell you what name they use when they're… flying under the scanners?"

Threepio cannot raise an eyebrow, but he can cock his head a little, so that gets the job done.

Ellie smiles. "Amidala. Tell me General, if this goes well, will we make a play for Naboo? I intend to take Lady Ren there for… a pleasant few days of sightseeing and getting a feel for palaces and how… Queens behave sometime the month after next."

"They know." Threepio didn't know that. He should have, as soon as Kylo asked if that was his grandmother… There's no way he should have been able to identify her, let alone from an image in his head, but… They know.

"They know. I'm… doing my best to not understand how they know, but they know."

Threepio's voice is nervous when he says, "How?"

"Vader is dead, isn't he?"

"I have no reason to believe otherwise."

"Nor did I, until Kylo mentioned that's who told him about Padme."

Threepio snorts something that could be a laugh. "Have you not heard? As per the will of the Force, no one is ever, really, gone."

"Ah… Ghosts in a somewhat more… literal… sense than we generally mean."

"Exactly." He's quiet, remembering another lady of dark hair and dark eyes and gentle manners all wrapped around a spine of steel. "Tell me, Lady, can we make a decent play for Naboo?"

"If there's a girl child of the right temperament… I won't live to see it, but you will. It's… possible. Long, but not impossible, odds."

He nods. "What's more likely is an alliance, a… Princess of Alderaan, and perhaps, a Prince of Naboo… I understand there are currently ten of them of… what will be reasonable ages, and likely several more in the next few years."

Ellie certainly looks intrigued by that idea. "An eventual granddaughter. Her Royal Highness of Naboo and New Alderaan… With a very good chance, should she so desire, to stand for election to Master of the Order. Both cultures are… fond of each other. Warm bonds that go way back, though from what I can tell, they don't precisely know why Bail and Breha were always so… accommodating to them. And… were the Order to move into this, you'd have a perfect supportive triangle.

"I know Rey and Kylo don't want it. The… daughter… you're envisioning would have to have much more of her grandmother, and great grandmother, in her than Kylo does."

That's so blindingly obviously true that Threepio sees no reason to evade about it. "He's still… very angry… at Leia for how he was raised. I wonder what sort of politician we might have seen out of him if he'd not been… Ben."

"And who was Ben?" Ellie asks.

They hear Rey starting to move back up the steps.

"Ask him. I daresay he trusts you enough to tell you."

---

Rey's feeling a bit nervous as she steps out of the refresher, hair done, in her new outfit. Unlike some of her previous finery, there are… expectations that go with this. An ideal along with an image.

But, as she steps out, she feels Threepio relax.

"Good?" she asks.

He's silent for a moment, and she can feel his brain whirling, too many things at once to make a coherent sentence right this second, and then it clears. "Yes, Lady, it is." He waves to the window. "Come, look. That tiny blue dot," though the tiny blue dot is rapidly getting closer and closer to them. "That's New Alderaan."

"How did they end up here? Is this part of the Alderaan system?"

"No," Ellie says, standing up to join Rey and Threepio at the window. "Alderaan was the only planet in its system that could easily support human life. Thirty-five years ago, this was Glendevia IV. It was the Emperor's personal pleasure planet. This is where he'd come for his own private time. He'd entertain officers here. And occasional heads of state he wanted to impress. His Mistress's unofficial court was here."

"Unofficial?"

"She held her official court on Coruscant. Imperial City. This is where she'd take people who wanted or needed time with her, or her man, outside the gaze of the rest of the Empire."

"Have you been here before?" Rey asks.

"No." Ellie answers, "This was the palace of his last Mistress, and we were not friends. Selina Beau, his third mistress, kept her official and unofficial court at Imperial City."

"And after the war, as part of the Concordance, Glendevia IV became New Alderaan," Threepio adds. "And yes, I have been here before, but after it became New Alderaan."

"Did… Leia and Han never lived there, did they?" Rey asks.

"No. Officially, Leia was one of the Senators from New Alderaan, but she lived wherever the senate was, and that was never New Alderaan. She did, once they got some suitable buildings up, have a suite here, and occasionally spent a night or two, but that was it. Kylo has never set foot here."

Rey nods at that, looking at the bluish-green orb rapidly getting larger in the window. She rubs her lips together. "Should I be… setting up… a court, or shadow court, or…"

Ellie's very pleased to see that question. "Rhetta, The Emperor's Fourth and Last Mistress, set this up because Selina, his third one, had been his Mistress for going on to twenty-nine years. Many of her favorites held a grudge, or suddenly weren't favorites any longer, and wanted a discreet way to… either mend fences, build bridges, or whatever metaphor you like."

"And they wanted a way to do it without looking like they were doing it," Threepio says. "By the time Lady Beau fell, the Rebellion was going strong, and we used… friends in the right places, to… gently shift certain opinions and feelings, and occasionally, offer a dose of discreet poison at the right time."

"What?" Rey says.

"Apparently, if you had been very well situated in the friendship of one mistress, and suddenly she was no longer in favor, which meant you, too, were now longer in favor, you might decide that, just possibly, the Empire wasn't all it was cracked up to be, especially since the Rebellion was starting to win some battles, and, if, just possibly, the right person whispered the right words in your ears, then maybe, you might decide to… do something about it," Threepio says.

Ellie smirks. "Poison has long been the weapon of a smaller force going up against a larger, better armed, and better equipped one. Get the right person into the kitchen at the right place, and you can do more damage to an army than you can with an entire brigade of of stormtroopers."

Threepio inclines his head. "I was gratified to see how thoroughly controlled the kitchens of the Supremacy were."

Rey's not sure what to do with that, so she sits back, and contemplates the blue green orb below them.

---

Rey feels it the moment they break atmo and begin the process of venting the atmo from the ship and importing the local air to acclimate them and average out the pressure.

It's… real… in a way atmo on a ship, even one as big as the Supremacy just isn't.

And this… She breathes deeply. It's rich and warm, humid. How long has it been since she's tasted warm, damp air, alive with the feel of trees and plants and… They haven't even opened the hatch yet, and already she wants to leap out and just feel a living planet under her feet again.

"You look very eager, all of a sudden," Ellie says as they feel another shift in the motion of the ship. They've hit final descent, the last few meters where they gently hover down.

"I think I am," Rey says, even if it is just eager to smell air that isn't reprocessed through a billion scrubbers or sucked clean of any moisture or life by soul-stealing cold.

There's a very slight rustle of sensation as the landing pads touch pavement, and then, they hear the captain say, "And we've touched down. About ten minutes to get everything settled, the hatch open, and the men out, and you'll be free to deport."

"Well, then," Ellie says, trundling toward the refresher. "I'll touch up, and then down we'll go."

"We're the last ones off?" Rey asks Threepio.

"That is the idea, Lady Ren. For this bit here, our 'entourage' will exit, form two flanking lines, and we'll deport between them. Then we'll be greeted by whomever our handlers will be. They'll take us into the palace, and to our rooms. We'll have another hour to change into formal outfits, and then dinner."

"We're changing again?"

"Oh, yes, Lady, this is… Not nearly Alderaan enough for a formal dinner."

Rey looks at her outfit, the long-sleeved gray dress, and the maroon and silver over-dress. "We're not doing my hair again?"

"No. You can undo it when you sleep, because we'll do a different style, with a different message, tomorrow, but this part will stay the same."

She's relieved to hear that, then another thought hits, "What happens with all of this clothing when we're done. I mean… I'm not supposed to wear this again, right?"

That takes Threepio up short. "I'll admit I've never thought of that."

"Does it just get… tossed out… sit in my closet forever?"

Ellie joins them, linking her arm through Rey's. "Depending on how serious you and Kylo are about the Handsome Prince and His Lady bit, and how successful you are at it, some of it will end up in museums, some in fashion institutes, some will go to costuming workshops, and some will be recycled into other outfits."

Rey blinks, hard, at that. "Museums?"

"Certainly, people find clothing interesting and like to look at it. When we go to Naboo, we'll have to visit the palace. There are displays of the fashion of the various queens there. I imagine at least some of the gowns will be of interest to you, and perhaps pictures of them will be of interest to Kylo."

They hear the sound of the hatch opening, and boots marching. "They don't sound like an entourage," Rey says.

"Yes, I know. You can take the stormtrooper out of the uniform, but you can't take the trooper out of the man," Ellie says.

Rey doesn't think that's true, but it likely doesn't matter.

"Time to go," Threepio says, beginning the long and laborious descent down the stairs to the lower level.

Rey takes a breath and begins.

---

The air is sweet, heavy with moisture, perfumed with flowers and trees and… Alive. They're not in a standard space port. Unlike most of the landing pads Rey's been on, crowded with ships, reeking of fuel, mechanical lubricants, and the men and droid who tend the ships, this is a small, flat disk hovering over a garden.

She closes her eyes for a second and just breathes.

And then on a long exhale, she opens them, and walks with Ellie and Threepio to the small crowd who've gathered to greet her.

They're a few steps away from the ship, with her honor guard keeping pace when Threepio stiffens. It's… physically imperceptible, but Rey feels it.

Ellie does, too, "General?" she says, voice quiet.

"The smaller woman with the black hair in the light green dress. That's the Queen."

Ellie grins like this is the best news she's ever heard. She barely whispers, "We're not supposed to meet her until later."

"I know." Threepio's voice is tense.

Rey's not sure what to do with this. Ellie and Threepio are… tense, nervous, not scared, but thrown. Unsettled. They don't know if this is good or not. And… On the far side of the walkway… Rey clears her mind and lets herself feel.

It's not much use. There are too many people all around them. The stormtroopers are too close. The Queen's entourage is at least twenty-five people, and, all she can get are impressions from this distance, and she can't pinpoint who is feeling what.

Nervous. That's the main feeling she's getting, everyone is nervous.

For a moment, Rey's on edge, and then something occurs to her, everyone is nervous. Everyone. That's bloody stupid. No one's armed. There are no guns aimed at anyone right now. The worst that any of the people around them right now could possibly do is just insult one another.

It's… silly. She supposes a certain amount of nervous from the New Alderaan side makes sense. They don't know how this will shake things up.

But, for them… She relaxes. Kylo had said it, taking a non-aggression treaty to a pacifist government that they can crush with two-thirds of the armada in reserve is playing on the easy level. It'd be nice if this works out, but if it doesn't… It's not like the deal with the K'Arans where they'd be out eight billion credits. After all, if they don't take her up on her non-aggression deal, it's not like New Alderaan is suddenly going to develop a galaxy class navy and attack with it.

She feels the nervousness start to peel away.

And standing here, on a planet alive and vibrant, about to meet… her queen? Rey wonders if that has to be true, after all, if she is, somehow, Princess Rey of New Alderaan, then that would make Heloise Talmaash her Queen. She has the sense that if she did something to indicate that, it's entirely likely she'd so thoroughly surprise Threepio he might somehow, defying anatomy and logic, manage to get a nosebleed.

She doesn't know why that idea amuses her so much, but it does.

Three meters away from the New Alderaan delegation, Princess Rey of New Alderaan, smiles.

---

Helene Talmaash, current High Viceroy to Queen of Alderaan, takes one look at Rey, in her finery, in her dull gray and maroons of the house of Organa, sprinkled with the silver of the prime heir,standing next to a golden droid, and just about swallows her tongue.

She doesn't hiss at Organa, You didn't tell me they had Threepio, but only because Organa is too damn young to know why it matters. So is the Queen, who demanded to come to this, and is currently standing, as Lady Ren clasps her hands, bringing her cheek to Rey's, and warmly welcoming her.

This is not how this was supposed to work out. Organa had a simple job, go to the Supremacy, make sure that Kylo Ren wasn't Ben Solo, and then leave. It really shouldn't have been that difficult. Ben Solo had been happily, blissfully, gloriously dead as best anyone knew, and all Organa had to do was make sure he stayed that way.

Come back with one, easy report, 'Nope, not Ben Solo, no idea what he's on about,' and done.

But no, that bastard came back with news that, as best he could tell Kylo Ren was Ben Solo, and that they'd be negotiating a non-aggression pact with the Order, and the entire remnants of the Organa House and their allies lit up like the Critherine Lights on First Spring Day, and…

And then some asshole, and she knows which asshole did it, Frasier Antillies hasn't been happy with the Talmaash branch of the royal family for years, and as soon as Ben Solo was a going concern again, he dug as far into the records as he could, hoping that that stupid bloody contract that took the Organas out of the running had some fucking wiggle room in it, and that bitch! Leia… Three days after his fucking birthday. THREE DAYS.

And there's Threepio. Droids can't smirk. They just can't, but he is. She knows it. The last time she saw him was at the signing of the treaty that withdrew the House of Organa from the running, and here he is again, with a new Organa, all dressed up in the colors of her house, proclaiming her Princess Rey, which… fuck, legally, she bloody well is.

Unless Kylo Ren isn't Ben Solo. Even if the contract had been signed before his birthday, he'd still be granted the stupid title just as a courtesy. And thus, so would his spouse. After all, they'd written the damn thing to make it look like Leia had just shifted her focus, not like they were booting her, body and heir, out of the running forever.

Fuck!

She eyes soldiers who supposedly aren't soldiers who are here with their Queen, because whatever the hell it is Rey may be on New Alderaan, she's obviously their Queen at home, and… She blinks, really seeing the people in front of them, not just the golden droid and Leia Organa's doppelganger. That's not standard Order branding. She thinks hard, trying to remember what Threepio said as he introduced everyone because there's no chance he didn't mention why they aren't wearing standard Order branding…

"Mistress Rey of the Maji, Lady Ren of the Order, Princess Rey of New Alderaan…" That's what Threepio had said. The old biddy next to her was Ambassador Kinear of the Order, and he's General… a fucking General now, sigh… General Threepio of the Order of the Maji.

That's it. They're the Order of the Maji. Interesting. Lady Ren has… some backing of her own…

She watches as the Order of the Maji contingent greets their way through the line of higher ups among her own contingent. They weren't able to find out much about Lady Ren. Young, obviously. From… maybe Jakku. Maybe. Orphaned, or at least no acknowledged family. No name beyond Ren. Possibly part of the Resistance, for a little while, maybe, though several New Alderaanians had also been part of the Resistance, and none of them knew her, and there were no records of her in the official documents. But, given her current position… Well, Kylo Ren is a young man, and if the only way to shift the Order to Organa's liking was to honey trap him… She wouldn't put something like that past Leia Organa, especially if she got some fat, happy grand babies out of the deal. And, while very little is known about Lady Ren, Lord Ren… How hard would it be to tempt the man who used to be a monk with a willing and enthusiastic woman? And how likely would a man, tempted away from his vows, rush into a marriage immediately thereafter to salvage whatever was left of his soul?

That is, assuming anything of his days as a Jedi stuck. They must have, at least on some level.

And, of course, what would a lonely, sad man do, in order to make that pretty, and enthusiastic woman, happy with him?

No, she wouldn't put dangling a pretty girl in front of her son past Leia Organa.

Rey continues moving down the line. She has a pleasant open smile, and seems to be enjoying herself. She does fiddle a bit with some of the finery, and it's obvious to Helene she's not used to this level of fashion.

But that makes sense, too. Orphans generally don't find themselves rolling in piles of expensive material goods. Even here, where they have a very plush safety net for children without parents, they don't generally wear designer, bespoke clothing worth thousands of credits.

And if she's an orphan, that would make another bit of intel they got about her make sense, she may teach or run an orphanage. There have certainly been times when she, and occasionally Kylo, have been seen with a collection of children. They don't think any of the children are biologically theirs, but they also do not know. The youngest of the children they've seen is the wrong color to belong to both of them, and most of the others are too old to belong to Rey, or realistically to Ben Solo, who would have had to have still been Ben Solo when he sired them.

Helene keeps watching. There's nothing… special… about Rey. She's attractive, but not beautiful. She can't immediately see why Ren would have chosen her as his mate, but… Again, if women weren't exactly a common occurrence for him, just having a fairly decent looking one around who seemed, or even was, genuinely interested in and cared for him may have done it.

The only thing they could get concrete intel on was that apparently she and Lord Ren have a tendency to wander about on the Supremacy and scandalize some of the watchers by being obnoxiously in love. So, however it is things started with them, they appear to have moved in a direction that's to the satisfaction of both Rens.

Knowing they're honeymooning isn't the kind of information that Helene was hoping to have, though.

Knowing that fucking Threepio was going to show up for this thing, let alone that he'd have designed it to make everyone take one look at this girl and see Leia and Breha, would have been useful.

She glares, mentally (It wouldn't do for any of this to be seen on her face.) at Organa, wondering now how much of his slip ups on this come from not knowing any better, and how much of it comes from looking forward to a day where the House of Organa is again on the top of the heap, not supporting it.

Organa, standing next to her, a bland, pleasant smile on his face, greets Rey. He also takes her hands, and kisses her cheek, and says, "Greetings, my cousin. We'll be hosting you in my family's section of the palace."

Rey's voice is soft and light, and she seems quite pleased by this. "I didn't realize the Organas still had a place in the palace."

"Well, palace might… give the wrong impression. It's a massive compound where most of the main political players have at least an apartment, and often a floor of rooms for entertaining. It's just easier to live where you work, and have a place to put the people you need to meet with." He smiles gently. "That said, my aunty, your mother-in-law, still has a suite. We figured that it'd be fitting to open it up and air it out for you."

Rey's smile is genuine. "Thank you. I appreciate it." Then she steps over to greet Helene.

---

When they get into easy speaking distance, Threepio takes a step forward. He's not exactly in front of Rey, he's still to her left, but he is closer to the New Alderaanians who are here to greet them.

"Queen Heloise, we are honored that you would come to attend upon us."

She nods at Threepio and smiles at him. "General Threepio, I found myself impatient, and uninterested in dithering about, waiting for later this evening. I hope I have not upset the delicate balance of plans too badly."

"You are a Queen, madam. We shall rebalance for you. May I present Mistress Rey of the Maji, Lady Ren of the Order, and Princess Rey of New Alderaan, and Ambassador Kinear of the Order?"

The Queen smiles at both of them, and steps forward. Her hands, both of them, are extended, and Rey understands that it's her job to step forward. She does so, meeting the Queen between their delegations, and grasping her hands. Queen Heloise gently kisses each of Rey's cheeks, and smiles at her, while quietly saying, "As you were walking toward us, it looked like you'd found a good joke. Care to let me in?"

Rey feels the smile on her face. Heloise is young, and warm, and just… feels good to be near. "I'm not sure if it's a good joke, but I'll share it. I was feeling how nervous everyone around us is, and… It's funny, isn't it?"

Heloise offers up a small, naughty grin. "Well, on my side, they're unhappy because I'm not supposed to be here, and now they wonder why I am. And on your side?"

"I think, on my side, most of the nervousness was my own."

"Is my reputation that imposing? I keep telling them to stop spreading the rumors about being half-dragon."

Rey laughs a little. She doesn't know what a dragon is but understands from Heloise's feelings that they're supposed to be angry and scary. "Dreadful. I was expecting fangs and claws."

Heloise squeezes her hands. "No claws."

"Nope. Uh… I'm sorry, I'm new to this and still learning. Do I introduce you to my people?"

"I wouldn't mind, and then I introduce you to mine."

"Okay," and Rey gets to it. As she's naming her cohort, this is going well. There's… something… behind the friendly demeanor of the Queen, but it's not… bad. And she is a little nervous about it, but… She wants Rey to think well of her. That's definitely part of this. And… if she manages it, then… Something. She's not thinking of it, mostly working on the more surface levels of being calm and pleasant and making Rey like it here, and like her.

That's very important to the Queen.

As they move to the other side, to the New Alderaan delegation, Rey begins to get… maybe… a better idea of why it's so important that she like the Queen. A good half of the people in this group are loyalists to the Talmaash family. But the other half are not particularly tied to the Talmaash faction. No one here is actively hostile, but a few of them wouldn't mind, at all, if Talmaash wasn't ruling forever.

She has the feel that right now, the status quo is acceptable, but only because change is unpredictable, but if anything about change began to look good… Status quo could move into second place.

Rey gets it as they're shaking hands with a few Antilies. Some of the people here are afraid of Ben Solo coming in and upsetting things by adding himself to the list of contenders, but some isn't most, or even a strong minority. Some of them are hoping that if he, through Rey, can be wooed to supporting a faction, that will give them that much greater a position of power. And some of them fear that.

After all, Alderaan is peaceful, and, of course, inner-Alderaanian politics wouldn't dream of raising an armed hand against each other, but that doesn't mean the addition of a huge military force, one with a massive population base, at least compared to their own, and the ability to shift the tides of the wider galaxy, wouldn't make a good friend on the local level, too.

And the Queen… She's also interested in Ben Solo… And… The conclusion Rey's drawing doesn't feel right. The Queen very much wants Rey to be her friend, her ally. That's clear. She's going out of her way to make Rey like her. But she's also, as they're moving and greeting other members of the higher ups of Alderaan, very aware of the fact that this is a birth right monarchy maintained by marriages and bloodlines.

Rey's making her brow not furrow, because the most obvious level of what she's putting together here is that the Queen, who is not married, wants to secure her position by a link to Ben Solo. A marriage link. That would absolutely guarantee her own position, and the position of her offspring. She's the child of a link between the Antilles and Talmaash families, and if she could hook Ben Solo into that line, that would make their children Antilles-Talmaash-Organas, all three of the surviving family lines… But that's… wrong.

It's the right conclusion but… not for this? Kylo is beyond married. She is here as his wife and everyone is aware of that.

She's about to get more confused, when they step to Samanth Organa. For a heartbeat, Rey's afraid that that feeling of frustrated anger is coming from him, but he smiles, grasps her hands, calls her cousin (speaking of exactly how married Kylo Ren is, she's being called cousin and then granted access to Leia Organa's rooms) and makes her feel welcome.

That frustration is next to him.

Oh. Interesting. Everyone else has referred to her as Lady Ren. This one… The Viceroy, calls her Mistress Rey. Not Lady Ren, and not princess. This is the one who wants Kylo Ren to be a pretender, though she's mentally glaring daggers at Threepio…

Threepio who is slightly behind her and gloating.

Oh… Very interesting. This is one of the ones who slipped the knife into Leia Organa's back. One who… she's not thinking about why she wanted Leia gone so badly. It's there, under all the other thoughts, but it's so foundational that Rey can't untangle it enough from the higher level ideas to figure out exactly what it is.

But whatever it was, Leia was not someone this woman was fond of, and having her… Apparently, Threepio's costuming worked exactly the way he was hoping for, this woman is staring at Rey, but seeing Leia… just show up all of a sudden…

Interesting.

Viceroy Talmaash, who very briefly touched her hands, then says, "You should find the Organa suite comfortable. It's been closed for quite a while, but we've maintained it, never sure when Leia might be back. Is it possible that Leia will be joining us again? She's, obviously, no longer busy resisting, so there's no reason why she couldn't return to us, is there?"

That flatfoots Rey, because she's not sure if they know Leia's dead. Fortunately, Ellie's screaming in her head, LEIA IS NOT DEAD.

"As I'm sure you know, Leia is a force all her own. I'm sure if she desires to return, she will do so."

Helene has a sly look on her face, like she knows exactly what Rey's skirting around with her comment. "I was under the impression that Lord Ren had mentioned to Amelda Long that his mother was no longer among the living."

Name drop, Ellie thinks to Rey. She wants you to know she's on good terms with the Longs.

Rey thinks fast. That was at the Last Night party. Long... Who was she? She sat next to Kylo on the other side, so she was a big deal of some sort... Leader of the largest system in the galaxy. What was he saying... He was letting Ben Solo out into the galaxy. What did he say… "He did mention that perhaps her spirit was with us that night, though her physical body was not."

Talmaash nods. "Ah, easily misunderstood."

"May I introduce Ambassador Kinear?" Rey asks the Viceroy.

Helene takes Ellie's hands and they both nod at each other.

Then Threepio goes off script. He steps up on his own, and offers his hands. He hasn't done that with anyone else here, because his hands just aren't very good for shaking, but… "Helene!" His voice is warm and pleased, and Rey knows that if he had the kind of face that could emote, there'd be a warm smile and icy cold eyes.

She feels Ellie go still next to her, and revisits what just happened. With a quickly inhaled breath, she gets it. Even here, on New Alderaan, Threepio is still a droid. He's a servant, and at best an adjunct. He's not… a person.

And he just walked up to one of the most powerful women on this planet and used her first name, like an equal.

Rey lets the smile crest over her face.

Helene is staring at his hands, and she invisibly, but tangibly (at least to Rey) grits her teeth, and takes Threepio's hands. "Threepio. It's been a long time."

"Yes, it has. It's good to be back, though."

"I'm glad you think so. Perhaps we could tempt you into regular visits?"

"Perhaps. I know Colonel Jefferies will be eagerly speaking to Lord Antillies as they go through the negotiations to see about setting up an Order embassy here. I'm sure something along those lines would call me here frequently."

"Of course." Talmaash's smile is perfect. "I'm sure you're tired from your trip. And I know Samanth would like to lead you to your rooms. It was his idea to air out the Organa suite. Though, I'm sure you don't actually need a guide, do you?"

"I do not, but I appreciate the gesture." He glances to Samanth. "And I certainly wouldn't mind getting caught up on how the rest of the family is. We didn't speak of your father much last time, though I hope you remembered me to him?"

"Of course, I did!"

Rey feels how annoyed Helene is by that. Organa didn't remember Threepio to her, and she does not want him here.

Threepio carefully takes Rey's hand, or at least tries, and Rey understands that she's supposed to loop her arm with his, and does so. He then pats the back of her hand. "At some point before we leave, we'll have to sneak away for a bit to visit Almath's bakery. If for no other reason than to get Ostrae a few new goodies to sample."

Samanth is very pleased by the fact that Threepio remembers his father is a baker.

"His shop is still near the center of town?" Threepio asks.

"Of course," Samanth smiles, while leading them away from the larger crew toward the palace, and their rooms. "When we broke ground here, Papa wanted to be near the center of things, but away from politics. Back then Resilience, the capital city, was only a few intersecting streets, around a park."

"You built a park first?" Rey asks.

"Built might be an overstatement," Samanth says. "A space was left open for one. If there's anything that an Alderaanian loves, it's a garden. And… well… they were starting from scratch, laying things out with a plan for how they'd grow, so… There was room for gardens built in."

"I've been told Resilience is a beautiful city," Ellie says.

"It truly is. When we get to your rooms, you'll see. Leia had a good eye for locations, and… From the east balcony, you're overlooking the Remembrance Garden, and to the west, there's the city of Resilience."

"We aren't in the city?" Rey asks.

"Not for another twenty years, probably. Right now, we're about three klicks to the east of the edge of the city."

"And city is used… advisedly," Threepio says. "When last I was here the population was 1.26 million and growing. A good-sized settlement, but…"

"Nothing to make Coruscant blink. I know," Samanth replies. "More hope than reality, but so much of New Alderaan works that way. We're building toward our hopes, and living in the service of making them reality."

"I think that's an excellent way to build," Rey says.

"And it's certainly what we're doing with the Order, too," Ellie adds.

"The dreams may not be obtainable, not within our lifetimes," Threepio adds, "but there is value in the work of trying to achieve them."

"Well, put, General," Ellie says. "And, given the time frame you work on, perhaps this will happen in your lifetime."

"Perhaps."

---

They follow a gently sloping path away from the flight deck… landing bay… any word Rey knows for a place ships land and stay feels oddly out of place describing the hovering disk.

What's it called when the landing bay hovers over the ground? she thinks to Kylo.

A moment later she gets a somewhat surprised, Hovers over the ground? as a response.

Yes, we've landed, and there's this… huge, probably half a klick across, hovering disk. Our ship and several others are on it. Now we're heading away, toward the palace, but I don't want to sound like an idiot when I talk about the landing bay.

Quiet on Kylo's side for a moment. She's got the sense he may be asking C8 or looking it up.

Is it on a suspensor field, or is it built above the ground?

I think it's on fields. She glances behind them, and doesn't see anything attaching the landing zone to the ground, but she does see field generators. Definitely fields.

It's a heilio-pad. Apparently, they use them when the ground underneath is unsuitable for providing a stable landing spot for crafts. Swampy under there?

Rey looks closer, while trying to not look like she's gawping around, but under the pad is dark, so it's hard to make out details. Rocky. Big boulders.

That'd do it. How's it going?

Interesting. Warm welcome so far.

Good.

The Queen's very interested in you.

In a good way?

Not in a bad one.

Why does that feel ominous.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too. On the upside she's very friendly and wants me to like her quite a lot.

So, that's probably good, right?

I hope. I'm wondering if she's intending to ask a massive favor, though.

Ah.

Ah?

Ah. You're the one on the ground. What do you feel?

Less intimidated than I was expecting to, and acutely missing a world where there are plants and weather other than snowy.

She feels him smile at that. Well, we are supposed to carve out some time to go visit Achc-To soon. I bet there are places there that aren't arctic wastelands.

She mentally sniggers at that. Okay, they're talking to me, I need to focus.

Love you.

I know.

---

Kylo sits back at his desk, staring at his datapad, and the quick research he did. He's fairly sure that Rey had absolutely no need, whatsoever, to find that out. She just wanted to touch base with him a little.

And that makes him feel good.

---

From the heilio-pad, down the path, through… a garden. Everything here looks like gardens to Rey. There's nothing untamed or wild about this area, though everything is brimming with carefully tended, verdant plants.

Graceful trees, carefully shaped shrubs, flowering plants, so, so, so many flowers.

She once said she hadn't known there was that much green in the universe. And that was true. It's also true right now that she hadn't known, hadn't dreamed, or guessed, or imagined that there were this many flowers in the universe, let alone on this one path on this one town of this one planet.

She's not entirely sure she's even seen most of these colors before, let alone the flowers that they grace.

Would it be a horrible breach of etiquette if I ask about the flowers? she thinks to Ellie.

Ellie smiles. "I've been in space a long time, Lord Organa, and haven't seen flowers like this in even longer. Would you do an old lady a favor and tell me about them?"

Organa beams. "I'd love to. In addition to civics and politics, I studied horticulture at university, and I rarely get to do anything with it."

---

It is, on the most literal of levels, a different world. Not only on the level that they are walking through a garden devoted just to roses, and that all of these flowering plants, with their myriad colors, shapes, and blooms are all variations of the same species, but also in that Samanth Organa, who is not all that much younger that Kylo, grew up here, in Resilience, and at the age of fifteen, he began to work with the Alderaanian government, as an adjunct to the Talmaash house. At that point, the Organa House as a political entity was literally just Leia, and she was off being the First Senator from New Alderaan most of the time. As he got older, he was sent to Septin to study political theory, and supposedly to learn more about 'good' governance, and while there, he also took a concentration in horticulture, because, the ideal Alderaan is a place of agriculture.

As they walk through a crushed stone path, and bushes and trees and carpets of flowers, so many flowers, Rey tries to imagine Ben Solo, born on New Alderaan, though, given his birthday, there wasn't yet a New Alderaan to be born on. But, brought here as a child. Raised among people building a town and society, growing things...

Part of her likes the idea. She can see bits of Kylo, the part of the man who is tearing down old things and replacing them with new. The one who wants living things surrounding his own court on his ship. The farm boy who spent more than a decade with Luke, even if he didn't much like it, nurturing plants and building.

And she thinks about his dark. His will to destroy. His violence. His almost effortless ability to tune into the ability to rip down and hurt…

She thinks that Leia may not have been wrong, that there likely wasn't a place here for a Ben Organa-Solo. That peaceful Alderaan may have been worse for him than Luke's school, where at least he could pick up a lightsaber and use it to learn how to turn his violence toward defense.

Another thought hits as they walk through the gardens, General Organa, and Rey wonders how much this world was a home for Leia, too. How much of being in the Senate, of staying off world, of not chosing to be Queen Leia was an acknowledgement that she also wasn't as peaceful or light at Alderaan needed?

It's an… interesting thought.

So much of this is interesting. Rey just wishes she had a better handle on if interesting is good or bad.

---

They're in the Palace when something occurs to Rey. They just walked in.

Through a wide open, unguarded, gate.

Easy as they pleased.

She looks back at the gate, and tries to get a good feel for it. There's… that's interesting, too, when she thinks on it, she can feel the monitoring equipment. It's wired for 360 degree visuals, and sound, but there are no guards.

Samanth sees her looking at the gate behind him. "Not how you do it on the Supremacy?"

"Not exactly. You need permission to land, and then only people with the right access can get to where Kylo and I live."

Samanth nods. "Ah… Well… Getting on planet is a bit trickier than for most worlds, which I suppose is similar to your needing permission to land, but we take the idea of public work and public buildings seriously here. This is the heart of our government, and thus it belongs to the people. Any citizen of Alderaan has access to this, at any time, for any reason."

"Isn't that… dangerous?"

He winces a little. "Sometimes. We've had a few people who were… not as mentally stable as we'd have liked, come and attempt to do some untoward things, but… We do have security here, just not as much as many other places."

"And they do not appear to be armed," Ellie says, looking at what appear to be a collection of extremely physically fit gardeners working on the different plants.

"I don't know what you mean," Samanth says, face blank, lying for the first time since they've met him.

"Of course," Ellie replies.

Threepio adds, "The idea is that the value obtained by being truly accountable to the people is worth the risk of low security. Unless things have shifted radically since I was last here, all of the public rooms are open, all of the offices are wired for video and sound, and the apartments are wired for sound. There are no behind closed doors meetings here. No one can conspire in the shadows."

"That is indeed the idea, General Threepio. Any citizen can, at any time, come and visit. Not necessarily interrupt, but certainly listen in, and, of course, all of the feeds are public, so they can watch and listen as they're interested."

Rey blinks at that, horrified. "But… people… live in the palace? The Queen… while we're here… us?"

Samanth smiles at her, understanding what she's reacting to. "Refreshers are unwired, private chambers are only wired for sound, and… I understand a lot of the universe thinks we have a very… permissive set of attitudes about certain things, but… It's easier to just ignore, or skip over, the private bits, than to risk the corruption that can creep in by allowing someone to edit them out."

"The bedrooms are wired for sound…" Rey's still flabbergasted by that. Not that the room that she's going to be in is wired. She knew that would be the case. The idea that everyone's rooms are similarly enhanced is staggering.

"We're very good at just… ignoring bits and pieces, Lady Ren. For example, while your 'intimate moments' may be recorded, no one in their right mind, or even out of it, would attempt to use anything in them against you. There aren't too many crimes here, but that's one that will get you exiled so fast your head will spin."

"But people would still… know."

He shrugs a little. "The cost of a public life is the loss of your private one. The perks of the public life is the ability to do real, solid, tangible and meaningful good. A lot of us will tell you it outweighs the loss."

Rey blinks, stunned by that. He's not even lying about that, too much.

Force, no wonder your mother never let your family set foot here.

Rey?

Can't think too much now. When I get a chance.

Okay.

---

Well, that's not ominous at all, Kylo thinks, sipping his coffee and hitting send on the receipt of yet another report.

He tries to remember back to before he was in charge of this, what it was he possibly thought he was doing.

He's fairly sure reading reports all fucking day wasn't on the list.

---

They're in another garden. This one feels different. It's… somber… in a way the rest of the palace grounds just aren't. There are fewer plants here, more benches, and in the center of it is a square of crushed stone, flanked by low walls, with small torches burning in each corner.

In the square there's a large, jagged stone, a finger of minerals clawing up into the sky. It's maybe twenty meters tall. The bottom two of them are starting to wear smooth, but much above that is still shattered and ripped.

"We're not a terribly religious society," Samanth says, voice hushed. "This is about as close to holy ground as we have."

Threepio's voice is also quiet as he says, "The memorial garden. That obelisk is the largest piece of Alderaan they could find. On the far side, there's a memorial projector. Anyone who wishes can put in a name, and see pictures, read other people's memories of them, or add their own."

No one else is in the garden right now, and Rey wonders if that's common. "Do people come here frequently?"

"Less so now than when I was a child. They're more likely to come on festival days, now, or on Concordance Day."

"New Alderaan still follows the Republic calendar," Threepio says.

"We see no reason not to. As I'm sure you know, the Republic did not actually disband after the Starkiller attack, though it has been… made smaller. We are still active members of what's left of it," Samanth says, looking at the obelisk.

Rey thinks that's a diplomatic way to put it. It's also the first she's heard that the Republic is still a going concern, and apparently something she needs to ask, and likely think, about, but not here.

"Will the Republic mind you…" she's not sure what to say, making peace obviously isn't right, they've never been in conflict… "developing ties with the Order?"

"I imagine it with ruffle some feathers. But feather ruffling is a permanent state of affairs in the Republic, and… well… Those who survived didn't exactly wreath themselves in glory with how they'd handled the First Order affair, so… It's complicated."

"I'd imagine." They're getting closer to the buildings on the far side of the garden.

Samanth points up and to the left, at one of the wide, but not particularly tall buildings flanking this garden. "That one is Leia's suite. All of these are ambassadorial or governmental flats. I have one," and he gestures a bit below Leia's. "Your men will have the adjoining suites on both sides," that pleases Ellie, apparently, it's good to be located between the soldiers.

---

At the doorway, Rey wonders how much like Leia this space will feel.

And then she wonders if she'd be able to tell. It's not like she really knew Leia. Not like they spent long afternoons lingering over tea chatting about… Whatever it is mothers and daughters-in-law chat about. The man that made them family?

She's amused at the idea of what that might have looked like. Sitting with Leia and talking about Kylo. Ben. She'd probably want to call him Ben. That feels off in her heart, weakens some of the pleasure at the idea of it.

Samanth opens the door, and then hands the keycards to Rey. "And here we are, Lady Ren. Supper is in an hour, and I'll be back to collect you fifteen minutes before. It's in the formal reception garden, which isn't difficult to find, but… if you're not used to which garden is which, they do sort of look the same."

Rey smiles at him. "Thank you, Lord Organa. If you like, you can call me Rey. That's a thing cousins do, right, call each other by name?"

He's pleased by that, and Rey can feel that he's starting to hope that throwing Ben Solo into the mix will rise all of the Organa fortunes. Interesting. "I'd like that very much, Rey. I'll be back in a bit."

Apparently, he's not comfortable entering his aunt's home. Or maybe that's just a cultural thing, don't enter someone else's dwelling without explicit invitation. Maybe in a world with no real privacy the trappings of it are important.

Rey doesn't know. She steps into a tidy, warm, inviting, and… empty, this apartment is, beyond anything else, empty. No one lives here. No one ever lived here. It may have been hand designed by Leia Organa herself, or not, but it doesn't matter. It's…empty.

"Is this how it was," she asks Threepio.

He nods briefly. "As best I can tell. If they've changed anything it's so subtle my sensors cannot discern it."

"Ah. So… Now what?"

"Getting changed again, dear," Ellie says. "Formal clothing this time. I'm sure there'll be some food in the cooler, so we'll get a bit of a snack, too. Then going out again."

Threepio heads to a door, and opens it. "This is the view Samanth was talking about." They're in what she assumes has to have been Leia's room, and two of the walls come together into an all glass corner. On the one side, she'd looking out at the Remembrance Garden, and at the other side, down a long manicured hill, dotted with copes of trees, and a bucolic winding road, is the city of Resilience.

"It's most lovely at dusk. The sun sets behind us, so we get the golden glow of sunset, and the lights of the city, and the remembrance park all glow together." He pauses for a moment. "Twenty-three minutes from now."

"I'll make sure to look."

"Excellent. I'm sure you have thoughts and questions, Rey," he meaningfully points to three spots in the room, and Rey knows that's where the mics are, "and we'll discuss them later."

"Thank you, I do."

"I'll exit now, and leave you time to change."

"Thanks."

---

She spends a moment just looking around, hoping for some… line of connection really. Something… Leia or Organa or… Something.

She finds it, eventually, tucked into a drawer. It takes a moment to understand why it would be, but there's probably something that comes in here and cleans, and its job is likely easier if the tops of the tables are clean.

It's an image cube. Like the one that had the memory of Ben and Han. She gently taps it, and it comes to life, and much to her surprise, it's not holos. It's six pictures, two dimensional, flat, images.

They're personal. Or at least none of them look staged or posed.

And they're young. Her mental image of Leia and Han and Luke are people in their fifties/sixties. These people are young. Maybe her age, definitely younger than Kylo.

The one in her hands, now, looking up at her is Leia, pregnant, lounging on the ground in a tree covered place, between Han's legs, her back to his chest, his hands resting on her belly, protective of the still forming Ben, as both of them grin at the camera. They look happy, and she can see why Leia would have wanted to keep that memory. She wonders who took it, Chewie or Luke or…

There's a shot of Han, crashed out on his back, asleep, with a small boy on his chest, also asleep. Han looks, even in his sleep, tired. And Ben… Her fingers trace over the ears, and his nose, sharp even as a toddler, and he looks tired, too. Babies shouldn't have black circles under their eyes, but… Maybe they'd had a cold or something. Maybe it'd just been a long day. Maybe the marks of Snoke in the background were already visible on her love, even with his chubby baby fat cheeks and his whole body fitting between Han's chin and hips.

Rey doesn't know the three people in the next picture, but she can guess. The girl is young, maybe twelve, maybe fourteen, small beside her mother and father. Her hair is brown, her skin pale, and her coloring doesn't quite look like either of her parents. It doesn't matter. They're all at a table, from the looks of it, having supper, and… It's probably a family meal, at home, and Rey wonders how rare a thing like that was for the Organa family. Wonders how rare it was in the Solo-Organa family, too. There's a window behind them, and in the glass she can see a reflection of tall, blurred gold. Threepio in the background.

There's a shot of Luke, looking… wistful. He's in black, lightsaber on his hip, staring off into the distance, over a desert that looks like home. She never noticed before how blue his eyes were, and wonders if this is Tattoine, and this was taken right before the attempt to save Han. Or maybe right after?

Her breath hisses as she inhales fast, at the next one. Kylo, who was Ben then. He's… so young. A man, barely. Probably about Jacen's age, maybe a little older. And… smiling. Sort of. There's just the barest hint of sardonic pleasure in his eyes, and a tiny lift to one corner of his mouth. His hair is shorter than she's ever seen it. He's got a bit of stubble around his lips and on his chin, and attempt to grow a beard that doesn't appear to be working. He's wearing Jedi robes. He still looks tired. She'd thought that most of him being a bad sleeper was Luke Skywalker waking him up with a lit blade, but now she wonders if he was ever any good at shutting down. It's easy to imagine that he wasn't.

The shot after that is probably why he looks pleased. It's a picture of a scroll, covered in elegant, ornate, handwritten, beautiful words. Rey can feel the kind of concentration and passion that had to go into each stroke. She knows the words, knows what she's looking at. The Code of the Jedi.

She wonders if that picture is twenty-year-old, freshly minted Master Ben. Probably. That's the kind of thing Leia would value.

She jerks a little, looking at the chrono, realizing she's spent too long just looking, and grabs the garment bag.

And then rolls her eyes. There are three fucking dresses in there. This is what Jon meant by not using one meter of fabric if fifteen were available, didn't he?

Rey sighs, and heads back out to where Threepio is standing on a balcony, looking at the memorial garden, and Ellie, already in her new outfit is nibbling on some sort of fruit. They do not appear to be pleased to see her in the clothing she was wearing when she left. Then they notice her holding the garment bag. "All right, which one, now? And don't say the white one. Three of the four of them are white!"

"The one with the silver collar, Princess," Threepio says.

Rey mentally grumbles, but grabs the correct dress. There's a thing she wants to ask, but isn't sure if she should because… wired for sound and all, but… Well… Fuck it.

"Here's what I'm not understanding. We're here with a non-aggression treaty. We are not making or going to make a claim to the throne of Alderaan. Kylo and I have no interest whatsoever in ruling this place. So, why am I going out of my way to look like Princess Leia?"

Ellie smiles. She likes how Rey took the listening devices into account.

Threepio replies with, "Because, Princess. You are the wife of the only legitimate heir to the throne of Alderaan. That's the beginning, middle, and end of it. It does not matter that we have no interest in ruling this planet, just in allying with it, you are Princess Rey, wife of Kylo Ren, once Ben Solo, son of the Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, and they will remember and act accordingly."

"What does act accordingly mean?" Rey asks.

"That's mostly, for the treaty to work out. For right now, it's about respect and station," Ellie replies.

"A warm greeting, as you saw, use of your correct title, and with any luck, a warm and close relationship between our nation and theirs."

Ellie's expression is a bit jaded as she says, "Happy family ties."

It's clear, from the look on her face, and the way she's thinking at Rey that she's completely aware of how well she and Kylo have personally done when it comes to family ties. Then, without the jaded expression, she adds, "The families we find are often more… accommodating… than the one's we were born into." And it's clear that this… political relationship, or whatever it may be, is her idea of 'found' instead of 'born' family.

Granted, she may be making that distinction because 'found' family has worked out for Rey.

Either way, she's got the answer to her question. Rey picks up the dress, and heads into her own room.

---

Can I distract you? Kylo's voice in her mind.

Please.

Quiet, but the feel of contentment.

Okay, I didn't really have anything to say, just wanted to check in. What are you doing?

Getting dressed, again!

Again?

I'm on my third outfit of the day. She can feel the expression he made at that. Then off to dinner.

I think you'll like that. Not like we did a lot of 'this is Alderaanian food' at home, but everything was good, and I know that was part of what I grew up on.

Him growing up gets her thinking of what she found. I found a picture of you.

She feels his eyes roll as he thinks of what sorts of pictures might be on New Alderaan. Force.

No, it's a good one. Or, at least, you look satisfied. She picks it up and stares at it, trying to get the image to him. Apparently, it works.

She feels him sigh. That's a billion years old. I don't know what your image of Master Ben is, but, that's him, appalling beard scruff and all. Find any other secrets?

Not yet. Maybe. All the rooms here are wired for sound. All of them.

Okay.

No, I mean, all of them. The private family ones, too. Anyone in the government is basically under constant surveillance.

She feels it when he gets what she's thinking at him. That's what you meant about maybe not bringing us there was a good plan?

Yeah. I guess, on the upside, the room is only wired for sound, but the only place you can have a private conversation is in the refresher.

Eww! I… Would not have voluntarily lived there, either. Always listening in?

Always. To the point where Samanth felt the need to point out that, 'using intimate moments' to undermine your political rivals is completely out of bounds and will get you exiled.

She can feel he's just sitting there, shocked and disgusted. You know, I'm not feeling any need to ever go and Prince Ben on their territory.

She laughs at that, slipping on the skirt. Yeah, the same. I mean, I know sometimes you get off on the idea of people watching, but…

Not for real. Really, not for real. Not… Wait, who listens to the recordings?

Anyone, they're completely open to the public.

He's mentally recoiling in shock at that.

Exactly. Okay, I'm dressed. I need to go.

Wait, let me see?

Rey goes to the mirror and looks at herself. She feels his eyes in the back of hers, and hears, Fuck it, I'd go if it meant that I got to stand next to you, hold your hand, be there with you, like that. You're beautiful.

She smiles in the mirror so he can see it, feels the sense of a kiss, and his mind retreating from hers.

I love you, Kylo.

I know.

---

It's several minutes later when she comes out. Threepio cannot take a deep steadying breath. Nor can he blink tears out of his eyes. But oh, if he could…

She's not the spitting image of Leia. But, it's close. If Leia had had a daughter… or, he supposes, a daughter-in-law…

She's wearing the long, flowing gown that he'd specifically requested from Jon. The cut is… close. Not exact, and of course she wears her Order of the Maji hexagon pendant, not the plated platinum necklace Leia had, but…

As close as time, and genetic variance, and memory can allow, she's the spitting image of Leia Organa, standing tall and proud, unbent, unbroken, ready to offer medals to the men who destroyed the Death Star.

That image was blasted all over the galaxy. On one level, it was the Rebellion, hurt but triumphant. On another it was the signal to all who could read it, that the Empire, for all it's might, all it's power, all it's weapons could not crush one, single, unarmed, planet. That anywhere, everywhere, resistance, and the ability to strike back and strike hard was true and real.

She was light, and warm, and a symbol of purity and justice, untarnished by the corrosion of the evil around it. The flame that may gutter low in the storm, but never burns out.

Symbols aren't real. They aren't people, and that morning, Leia had been sobbing, knocked to her knees by finally having time to begin to think about what had happened. But the show was set, and the image had to go on, so she bathed her face in ice water, steadied her breath and straightened her shoulders, got made up and dressed, and did what needed to be done.

Rey stands there, in a dress that everyone at this meeting will be able to read. They'll all understand what they're seeing, and why. And Threepio feels… nervous… maybe? Excited? Eager, that's there. And, above, beyond and through, proud.

Anyone who can read what she's saying can tell that the Order is not making a play for Alderaan. Rey's hair says that up and down. But they are letting everyone on the planet know that should they wish, there's another route they can go. That if the current situation isn't what they want, hope, and a new start, is available.

Alderaan ceased to be about geography in a flash of light and a scream of terror, and it became attitude, belief, and ideals. And Rey stands there, showing that if the current version of Alderaan isn't all it's wrapped up to be, that there is another option.

That not too far from here, there is a prince in exile, and the opportunity for a different sort of life, but one that is still, Alderaan.

---

They hear the knock at the door, and one of the 'entourage' goes to open it. Rey notices that they've all 'dressed up' too, and are waiting to join the party.

She can feel that they're, actually, for the most part, rather excited about this. It's not how security generally works, and being in somewhat more comfortable clothing, going to a party where they've been instructed to act like guests (which they're a little fuzzy on, but talk to people and eat seems… doable) is interesting to them.

Samanth comes in, takes one look at Rey, and smiles softly. "Oh." He swallows, and glances to Threepio, and then back to Rey. "You," he blinks a little. "Look so much like my aunt right now."

"Good memories, I hope?"

He nods. "Uh, yes. I… We weren't terribly close. She wasn't on world much, but…" There's a certain tenor of hero worship in his voice, "She was… is…" his eyes are searching hers, looking for help, and Rey understands that two things are true right now, he absolutely does feel warmly about Leia, and he's also, absolutely, trying to find out if she's still alive.

"Larger than life?" Rey supplies as an end to his sentence.

"Yes."

"I felt that way the first time I saw her, too."

"When was that? Did B—Kylo bring you home to her?"

"Maybe the other way around," Ellie says, slipping between them, taking Samanth's arm, and Rey's.

And Rey, having an idea of what to do with the story, starts to tell about how she met Leia Organa, which is really the story of how she met Han Solo, and a bit more of a story about how she met Kylo Ren, and… As they move toward the reception, she manages to tell the whole thing without ever making is clear that Leia, or Han for that matter, are dead.

Threepio's a few steps behind her, and she can feel him beaming at her.

---

Eat and talk to people.

Put like that, it's really not all that tricky. Right now, the job is to stand around, talk to people, and eat or drink the little nibbles that are moving around on trays between and through the people. Rey likes eating, and so far, the talking is not bad.

They're in yet another garden, this one filled with shrubs and flowers and the theme of it seems to be white and rust. The flowers are white, the shrubs have mottled rust-toned leaves, tiny white fairy lights flicker among the plants. The tables are a deep, cherry stained wood, the place settings, also white.

Rey blends.

Except, well… She's the only person here wearing white, and… On her own that's a little… not nervous, she isn't nervous about it, but it does feel like she might be transgressing.

Though every time she focuses on Threepio he's just as pleased as pleased could be by this. And Ellie seems satisfied, so…

The Viceroy. Right. She's watching Rey. Trying not to be obvious about it. She's deeply in conversation with one of their 'entourage' and charming the socks off of him. He's younger than Rey is, and has very obviously never had anyone he's considered at high up as the Viceroy pay him any attention, let alone this sort.

He's also a few seconds away from blowing any and every cover he's ever had about being anything other than a security expert, so Rey decides now is a good time to wander over and see what's up.

As soon as it's clear she's joining them… R4Q8-7, that's what he was introduced to her as, snaps to attention. She smiles at him, and takes his hand, and he doesn't exactly die, but he does look like the world could swallow him whole and he'd be on much less shaky ground about what to do next.

"Pleasant conversation?" Rey asks.

"Yes, Mistress!" chokes out of attention stiffened lips. She squeezes her hand and does her best to subtly indicate relax without actually thinking it directly to him, because if he's this tense with her nearby, he'll have a stroke if she actually starts thinking directly into his head.

He seems to get the unspoken message, because he does relax a little, and she lets go of his hand.

"Your secretary was telling me all about the trip here, and how he's never been on a planet before," Helene says.

"Really?" Rey asks.

"Yes, Mistress. I've been on the Supremacy my whole life."

"Oh. I didn't know."

"There's no reason you should have."

She smiles and nods at that. "It feels odd to me, too. I've never been anywhere this alive and green. I was born in a desert."

"We have deserts," Helene says, her mouth on automatic small talk, filling in piles of information about Alderaanian geography. But as she's talking, she's eyeing the dress.

A lot.

She'd never, of course, say the sorts of things she's thinking about it. That would be horribly impolite and impolitic. So she's talking about cute little animals that live in the desert areas, and how they power two thirds of their energy grid off of solar collectors out there, and the challenges of keeping the collectors in good condition what with all the sand and… Rey's fairly sure she can do this all month.

But Rey's feeling an urge to poke her about the dress. Pull her out of that carefully concocted cage of polite behavior. Get her to lay some of her cards on the table, so to speak.

She doesn't aim for it, outright. That would be putting her cards on the table, specifically, the ones that show she's aware of what isn't getting into the spoken conversation. She does spend a few moments just feeling about how satisfying it would be to just say what she's thinking for once.

How… good it would feel.

"That is a lovely dress," Helene says, and Rey mentally gloats. She didn't even have to say anything. This is… the mind trick on a non-verbal level, and she can't wait to tell Kylo about it.

"It is. Jon made it for me, and I love it. It's just…" She's never even contemplated doing this before, but for some reason she feels like it's necessary, so she spins letting the dress flutter around her when she stops.

"Have you seen the original?"

"Yes."

"Really?" Helene looks very interested in that, as if Rey's just let something slip. "It's in the museum of the Rebellion here."

"Oh. I mean, I've seen pictures of it. Who hasn't? But…"

"But, I assume, since you claim them to be your in-laws, those images would take on a different level of meaning."

Rey's mentally smiling, Helene looks like she can't believe that sentence got out of her mouth.

"I think you mean, they claimed me."

"Of course. Large, happy family wedding, right?"

Rey smiles. "No. Nothing like that. Not yet. We marry first, and hold weddings later."

"Of course. And how did your mother-in-law take the news of your marriage?"

Rey smiles at that, too. This woman knew Leia, well enough to not like her. "She told me it was a bad idea and it wasn't going to work out the way I thought it would."

That gets a startled blink. Then a laugh. "Well, she never did believe in feel-good nattering."

"Nope. Later, she told me that it seemed to be working out a lot better than she thought it would. And with any luck, she'll chose to attend that wedding when we have it."

Helene just watches. "She and Ben are still estranged."

Rey shrugs. "It's an ongoing situation. Did you know him when he was Ben?"

"No. Leia wasn't fond of the idea of letting him come here. I'd only occasionally hear bits and pieces," a vivid memory, Leia looking at Helene and a few others, 'You can't… My son doesn't know who his grandfather is… Just… Give me time to tell him myself…'

Rey makes herself not blink, not respond. Leia had to be lying, buying time, something, but… Helene's memory of it feels real.

"He was training to be a Jedi, right?"

"He did. He obtained the rank of Master about twelve years ago."

"Oh. She never said."

"I believe that would have been… after you and her ceased close relations."

A small smile. "That's a nice way of putting it."

"Isn't that how things work here? Everyone's nice?"

The viceroy smiles. "Exactly. And everyone knows their place."

"Do they? I don't get the sense that this is how you'd generally treat a royal princess of Alderaan."

That smile is icy. "Really? Based on what, the warm and close relationship Leia and I had?" I deposed one queen, taking you out would be child's play.

Rey mentally smirks at that. The Viceroy doesn't understand what Rey wants out of this deal, which also means she can't do a decent job of thwarting it.

"Fashion speaks volumes," Helene says.

"So, I've been told. It's a language I'm still learning."

"Ah," Helene looks over to Threepio, standing gold and bright, with his black armband and general's rank. Now she's wondering how much Rey knows about what she's wearing, and doing wearing it. "White is the color of royalty, here. More specifically, the color of the heir apparent to the throne."

"Unless I've deeply misunderstood how you do things here, that would be Kylo, and I am here in his place."

"That would be Ben Solo, assuming he's still alive, and Grigory Antillies, who is not here tonight because it's past his bedtime, if he's not."

"You know he's alive."

"I know Kylo Ren has not, to anyone's, let alone everyone's satisfaction, proven himself to be Ben Solo."

"And yet, everyone here, including you, knows he is. Truth will out."

"And what is the truth?"

"That the Order seeks an alliance, one that has no up or downside for us, your place in this drama is insignificant on our scale, but a great amount of upside for you."

"Only a fool thinks any deal has no downside."

"Then the converse would be true as well. Only a fool believes the abstaining from a deal has no downsides."

They hear a loud clapping, and a voice speaking loudly, corralling the guests to the seated part of the meal.

"Lady Ren," Helene nods her head, and walks toward the tables.

---

Dinner is easy. They've gone from eat and talk to eat and listen.

It's a cultural history of Alderaan through food.

Apparently, Alderaan of old was broken into seventeen administrative districts, each one fairly geographically distinct from the others, and having moved to a new planet, they've attempted to recreate that as closely as possible.

With… varying levels of success.

The chef is pointing out that, for rare and valuable plants, there were botanical gardens all over the galaxy that had specimens and were willing to give them back to New Alderaan once they got settled in and began to try to recreate what they lost.

But for common ones, like the grain that made up the majority of their breads… A complete and total loss. They've been, over the intervening decades, attempting to genetically rebuild some of the staples of what made Alderaan, Alderaan, but that is a slow process, with new plants coming online every year or so, but only a few of them. So this, isn't quite, a taste of Alderaan, but it's as close as they can get, and there is the hope that before everyone who remembers what home actually tasted like is gone, that they can get most of the staples worked out.

Each zone… They carved out bits of the planet that matched most readily what they'd had at home. Some of them were easy, Alderaan was covered in mountains, and New Alderaan has a good portion of them, too. But Old Alderaan had long rolling grasslands, and several tundra, and a few arboreal forests that are either not on New Alderaan or significantly smaller.

But, so are the populations that settled in those places, too. A population of more than two billion dropped to about six million in less than a minute. In the intervening thirty-eight years, that population has grown to ten million, and there are slightly more than a million here, in the main capital zone, and a bit more than half a million or so in each of the others.

Each dish is supposed to represent one of those zones.

Each dish comes covered in some sort of fine field, to keep the scent in. When the first one is served, the chef points out that each of the little morsels are the most popular or iconic foodstuff of the area, and that the bloom on the plate is the flower that represents that zone.

The first plate, chosen specifically for Rey, is from their desert zone. Through the field, she can see three small bites of some sort of vegetable matter, and a tiny white cactus blossom. Releasing the field bathes Rey in the smell of dry air, dust, sun-baked soil, and the tiny plants that bloom in the cool shade, thriving on the few drops of water they can coax out of the air. It's so much like sunrise on Jakku that Rey almost gasps.

Niima was poor. People lived hand to mouth, scrabbling for the water and calories they could get. So nothing on the plate tastes like home, because… because she never got a mouthful of pickled cactus, or some sort of grain mixed with honey and toasted golden and warm, let alone the pulp of a different kind of cactus mixed with herbs and berries into a porridge-like consistency. She wonders if on Jakku there were places where food like this was available. She supposes it doesn't matter if there ever were.

When they finish, the bloom, the small white desert flower, is placed in a basket next to Rey's plate. At the end of the meal, she'll have a collection of blooms, Alderaan, in all of it's flowering glory, laid out next to her.

---

Rey's seated next to the Queen, on her left, and very happily tasting everything. At one point, between courses, she says, "I have a feeling I'd have a much easier time with history lessons if they were all this pleasant."

Heloise smiles at that. "You and me, both. Does your homeworld have traditions like this?"

"No. Or if it did, they were never shared with me. My cultural history would be lumps of hydro-activated protein powder gnawed down fast to make sure no one else steals it."

"Oh… I'm… Sorry, doesn't feel like it even begins to edge the bounds of appropriate for that."

Rey takes a sip of her drink. This one is a mix of fruit juices. "It's appreciated by not necessary. You didn't put me there, and weren't in a position to get me out."

Rey watches understanding bloom on the Queen's face. "And now you are in a position to get people out, so the Order does."

"That's the idea. Do you ever think of offering New Alderaan as a refuge to people who need one?"

"That is a topic that hasn't come up. Beyond, of course, Alderaanians who were left stranded when our home was destroyed."

"In addition to them. The galaxy is filled with people who need better homes, and would likely do well if they could just get to a better place."

That gets a small smile on the queen's face. "I imagine that is true." Rey understands that to mean that there's no chance at all of Alderaan going out to adopt lost people who don't already have an attachment to it.

Well, it was worth mentioning… She thinks to herself.

Then the chef is heading toward the center of the quad of tables, bearing another meal, and small plates of something else are being settled in front of them.

---

I'm going to die.

Rey! Kylo sounds alarmed.

Food. Too much food. We're doing a cultural history of Alderaan through food. Each administrative region is being wrapped up in a few bites, which is great, but… Kylo, there are seventeen administrative regions.

He's sitting at his desk, looking at more reports. He's got a cup of coffee next to him, that he's slowly been nursing all afternoon, and doesn't, off the top of his head, even remember what lunch was.

Poor baby. That seems like a safe enough response.

I'm so full. And I can't turn anything down. And there are still six courses to go.

Okay, that legitimately sounds awful to him. He tries to mentally hug her, and feels her relax a bit with him. Poor baby. And this time I mean it.

Thanks.

Is it good?

Actually, yes. It's just a lot!

He twitters his fingers against his desk. What's everyone else doing?

Eating. He feels her mentally groan.

Smaller bites, chew more slowly, talk more in between?

I'm trying. They're lecturing on what everything is, where it's from, and why it's important to the region, so not much time to talk, but I am chewing very slowly.

So, Threepio got you out of having to make small talk by feeding you a ton of food?

Yes, and yesterday I would have thought that was an awesome plan, but today I'm just full.

Hide some in your napkin?

I think I'm going to have to. There's a long tablecloth. How bad is it if I start stealthily dropping bits of food under the table?

He laughs at that. It never worked when I tried that with my nannies.

She mentally laughs a little, too. The Queen's talking to me, I need to pay attention.

And he lets her get back to it.

---

Finally, they're on the last dish. On the upside, Rey feels like she's got a really concrete idea of at least the different cultures and people of Alderaan. On the downside, she's so full she wants to die, and that's with half of each course ending up under the table.

Fortunately, this last bit is small. And it's only one thing, and one flower. A sprig of what looks like a branch, with little white flowers and small red berries on it. Next to it is a cup of near black liquid.

As soon as the chef says, "Our final region is Madonia, the mountainous region where Aldera, the former capitol of Alderaan was. Now it's several thousand kilometers from where we are here, and the settlements are small but growing," Rey knows what's on the plate.

The chef continues on, talking about the old capital, and the new region that most closely resembles it.

Leia Organa, as a child, didn't much like tea. It was okay. And as she got older, she didn't much like wine. It made her head fuzzy in a way she didn't enjoy. But she did like coffee. And on Alderaan, in the mountains surrounding the capital, the ones she could see outside her window from her bedroom in the palace, there was an ideal climate for growing coffee.

And though it was a much sought after trade good, commanding huge prices, there was always some available in the royal house, for their princess, to sip on, rich with milk and sugar as a child, and then as she grew older, darker and stronger.

As soon as the field releases, the scent of mountain air, of a lake nearby, of long, warm afternoons, and cool damp mornings, of coffee, rich and deep and black, all swim around Rey.

She inhales deeply, pulling the scent into her lungs, and lifts the cup to her face, to breathe it in. Then the sprig of blossoms, and then puts them in her basket.

She doesn't reach to drink the coffee though, just holding it in her hands, and then looks to the Queen. "Would you be horribly insulted if I asked to save this for Kylo?"

The Queen looks slightly confused by that request, but the Chef steps in and says, "Lady Ren, just ask, and I will send you home with another portion, made fresh before you go."

Rey smiles, and sips, and understands.

"His mother loved coffee. And his father would buy it for her. Any new place, new market, he'd go and try to find her a little taste of home. And she'd smile, and say thank you, and drink a cup, but it was never right. Not… this."

She can feel everyone at the table attune to that. Feeling it.

"That's how Kylo got a taste for coffee. It never tasted right to Leia, so she'd give most of it to him, and he'd never had the real version, so whatever his dad brought home was good enough."

She sips again, understanding that this had to be one of the plants they could get cultivars for. That this would have been in botanical gardens. And she also understands that coffee takes close to twenty-years to get properly up and running, and that they've likely only really been able to produce a functional crop here for the last maybe ten, more likely five, years.

"I think he'd like this, very much."

There are, not counting her security, maybe thirteen people here under the age of forty. All of them have some version of that story. All of them have a memory of a parent holding something that just wasn't quite right. All of them remember that yearning for a home that was no more, even as they tried to rebuild it.

And, no matter what their private thoughts may have been going into this dinner, it's clear that none of them doubt, at all, not anymore, that Kylo Ren was, once upon a time, Ben Solo.

---

So tired!

Kylo perks up as he feels Rey's voice in his head. All done?

Thank the Force, YES! I'm back in my room, laying on the bed, working up the energy to undress.

He smiles at that. I'd help you with that if I could.

I know.

How'd it go? Sounds like you survived all ninety-seven courses.

Barely. Next time, I want to go beat on some idiot with a staff again. That was a lot easier.

He laughs at that. I'll see what I can arrange. A brief pause. I've got a meeting with the accounting department next week. Want to beat on him for me?

Another bit of quiet. He's got the sense she's sitting up and starting to work on undoing her hair. The accountants normally have things you need to hear.

He glares a little. I know. That doesn't make my desire to smack people when I hear it any less intense.

Poor baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you talk shop with them at all? Or was it all puffery?

Just barely. Did you know the New Republic is still a thing?

He blinks at that, and then says, "Thank you," to C8, who is just bringing him his supper. I didn't. "C8, is the New Republic still active?"

"Yes, sir. Though current membership is down to fewer than three hundred worlds representing less than a trillion people. It's military strength is down to less than two thirds of ours, though because the members who are still willing to maintain the New Republic are wary of sending their defenses away from their home worlds."

He nods, and decides that's more than he's capable of pondering for tonight, though he does make a note to check up more on it later.

C8 tells me that yes, they are still active, but they're still locked in their traditional problem of how strong the Republic as a whole is compared to the individual systems, and the systems not being sure they want to take the personal hit to support the whole.

Mmmm… She feels distracted to him.

You're tired.

I really am.

Sleepy?

Some. Ellie says we should try to sleep. It's dark. I've eaten. Part of me can easily believe it's bedtime, but part is fairly sure that it's just about dinner time.

Kylo looks at his plate. It's just about dinner time here.

You eating while you work?

Yeah. The idea of going home and sitting in our kitchen alone isn't appealing to me.

He feels her smile at that. Then he feels the tired in her mind, and an idea hits. He grabs his plate and mug, and heads into his room. He's not sure entirely how this'll work, but it probably doesn't need an audience.

Is your hair still up? He thinks to her.

Not anymore.

Good, get undressed and flop onto the bed.

He feels her curiosity at that, but doesn't challenge him.

Let's see if this works. He settles into their bed, and focuses on her. That part is easy. And he can feel how readily he could just let go and find himself straddling her hips. A moment and his Force would take him there. But that's not what he's aiming for, not right now, and certainly not to a room where any sound will be recorded.

Instead he holds the focus, and lays his hands on her shoulders. It's… real… sort of. He can see it behind his closed eyes and feel… some of it. The pressure and some of the heat is there. The texture and… Rey… of his skin on hers isn't.

Feel it?

Enough. Ghost touch.

Fitting. He thinks, mentally stroking his hands over her shoulders and back. Good?

He feels the content sigh on her part.

His hands wrap around her shoulders, and his thumbs start to press into where they join with her neck. Your hair is different. He'd, obviously, noticed the new style when it was up, but now there's this huge mass of it on the pillow next to her.

According to Threepio, they added more hair to my hair. It comes to my waist when it's down now.

He's almost tempted to ask her to stand up so he can see that, but decides it'll hold for when he sees her in person.

You like that, she thinks to him.

Probably. He strokes over where her hair would be if she were with him, and again, it's ghost touch. He can make out very little of it, but she should feel the pressure of his hand moving over her scalp.

Do I look much like your mom?

That stops him cold. He's just mentally hovering over her. And she's waiting. Finally, he thinks, I don't think so. I mean… You've got similar coloring, but… so do a quarter of humans. What's got you thinking about that?

One of the Alderaanian powers that be was thinking about it. Threepio's got me here, intentionally trying to evoke the idea of Leia, but the Viceroy is now wondering if you've got 'mommy issues.' And if that's part of why you chose me. She had a lot of bizarre opinions on the subject.

He just sits there for a moment, then bites his lip, and thinks, It's abundantly clear I've got 'mommy issues' coming out my and her ears, but being attracted to you isn't one of them. Though there's a little squirmy part in the back of his mind that really hopes that's true. He does his best to ignore it, and Rey does, too.

Other than disparaging my sexual preferences, anything else interesting happen?

The last course was coffee, and I asked if I could keep it for you. That got a no, but they're making an extra one to send home with me. Anyway, when I told them the story of Han trying to get Leia a taste of home, everyone else got it. The part where she gave you the thing that wasn't quite right, and her smiling at Han for trying to help her with it, they've all got a version of that story.

Oh.

Yeah, there may have been some doubts about you having been Leia's son. There aren't anymore. That's just too much of an Alderaan story to be faked, apparently. One of those things they've all done, but no one talks about.

He thinks about that, pressing his thumbs into the flesh beside her spine. Press, hold, move down. Press, hold, move down. Experiences that apparently were widespread, but for which he had no context, because he never got to be with the other people who'd had them, too.

Granted, if being their meant constantly being wired for sound and visuals…

He refocuses on Rey, on her breathing below him, on her skin and the back he's trying to stroke, and realizes that she's fallen asleep. He smiles a little, that was the point of doing this. Then he lays a kiss on her shoulder, and pulls himself fully back into his own room.