Tesserae

Once the door closed on her room, Leia shifted. "Ugh, I hate these events. Don’t you?” Leida was taken back. “I-I agree”

“Is it okay for you if I just crash here for a bit? I don’t wanna shake anymore hands.” Leida nodded, and Leia flung herself onto the bed. “Dad says I need to start building connections if I wanna make it in politics.” She remembered the man her own father had been engaged in conversation with, Bail Organa, the Senator for Alderaan. Mom talked about him all the time. One of the few people that cared about her pet issues as much as she did. That name. Organa. She hadn’t put two-and-two together before this moment.

“Wait, your father is--” 

“Old man in a cape talking to your dad? Yes.” Bail was consort to the Queen of Alderaan. But that meant… Leida blinked. “That means you’re--”

"A princess? Correct." She sighed. "But here, I’m just another Junior Legislator drafting proposals no one will read." 

Leida’s mouth was wide open. She needed to know every detail of her life. How big was her castle? What did her court dress look like? And most importantly, did she have a prince? 

“Are you engaged?” She blurted out.

Leia laughed. "I’m fifteen. Unless you’re offering?" 

Heat rushed to Leida’s cheeks. “M-my mother was engaged at fifteen. I thought it was the same across the Core Worlds. That’s all.” 

“Not that young. At least not in Alderaan. But we have a lot of other strange traditions.” Leida studied her. The effortless confidence, the way she dismissed titles like they were nothing. A walking contradiction. A rebel princess. 

"Does your dad have Chandrilan cigarras?” the future monarch asked out of the blue. “Papa says they’re a delicacy." Leida knew in fact where Perrin kept his stash. 

“He keeps them in his study.”

Her royal highness sat up, eyes gleaming. "Let’s try one." The suggestion awakened a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. A smile spread across her face. Before she could say anything Leia had grabbed her arm. “Let’s go!” A year later Leia would be a senator, and Leida would be engaged.

Walking back out, the two of them traversed the apartment arms crossed, trying their best not to burst out laughing. “Stop giggling,” the princess hit her playfully in the side. “You’re going to blow our cover for Force sake.” She couldn’t help it. This was uncharted territory for Leida. Her normal friends would never try something like this. If any of them would have even suggested it she herself would probably have shut it down, but how could she say no to a princess?

They’d nearly made it out, cigarras in hand, when an authoritative voice cut through the hallway: "Where do you think you’re going? And what is that in your hands?” She glared at them as they looked at each other. Vel’s harsh stare alone was worse than being chewed out by either of her parents. Her mom would always fall back on personal indignation, ‘how could you do this to me’, and was always more offended than angry. Dad wasn’t that good at the whole ‘strict parent’-thing and would probably mostly be upset because he had fewer cigarras left for himself. Vel confronting them felt like being interrogated by Saw Gerrera and his partisans. When her aunt wanted to she could be cold as ice. However, the most powerful weapon in Vel’s arsenal was that deep down Leida actually cared about her opinion. Fortunately for Leida, she knew how to turn the tables around on her. “Auntie Vel, you did a lot of worse things when you were my age.”

“Yes, but I wasn’t the daughter of a prominent senator.” Vel’s gaze flicked between them, then, to Leida’s shock, she sighed. "If anything happens, contact me." She pressed a discreet circular communications device into Leida’s palm.

“Thanks auntie Vel”

"Don’t make me regret this."

They giggled the entire elevator ride. Leida couldn’t believe what had gotten into her. This wasn’t like her. Standing by the reeling and looking out over the flickering lights. The speeders zig-zagging between the billboards displaying Soda commercials. “This tastes terrible,” Leida said with a deep cough. The princess agreed and threw hers over the edge. They watched as thousands of credits worth of tobacco travelled down toward the Lower Districts. “Amilyn told me about this place that doesn’t check IdentiChips.” Amilyn this, Amilyn that. Leia hadn’t been able to stop going on about her friend Amilyn Holdo, a fellow Junior Legislator, the entire evening. 

“Is it in the Lower Districts?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not in the Low-Lower Districts.” Leida was quiet. For her this was adventurous enough for one evening, but her majesty had clearly just gotten started.

“Come on, do you really wanna go back up there?”

“No, but--”