DYNASTY ( sw.. ) ✔

o2. social diplomacy..

10 BBY

She was nine years old when she last saw her mother's face, without even knowing it would be the last time. The queen took her daughter from her bed in the dead of night, wrapping her in a blanket and carrying her through the most hidden hallways and streets.

"Where's my father?" Lorna whispered, looking up only to her mother's face. She was sleepy and her eyes were barely staying open in the first place.

"He's a bit busy," the queen was on the verge of lying. Though Vonath punshed lies with death, she found it extremely cruel to even phantom giving her sweet child the truth. The truth was hard and cruel, too dark for those light green eyes full of hope: the King was arguing with his brother after he signed, behind their backs, deals with the Empire.

"Where are we going?" Lorna whispered again.

"On a vacation," the lies began. Her mother smiled down at her, brushing some locks of wild curly hair from her daughter's eyes. She had that feature from her. "But we are going with two different ships. And you will be going with a... friend of ours. He'll take care of you."

"But why can't I go on your ship?"

Because there is no other ship, the truth tried to be spoken. Yet as they reached the docks and the queen saw Han Solo and his Wookie friend, she decided to lie again, "Well, a princess should see as many ships as possible and this man has a very fast ship. Isn't it right?"

"That's right ma'am," Han smiled to the woman and nodded towards the child in her arms. "We need to hurry though, before... you know."

The queen's jaw clenched and for a second, her grip on her child tightened as she gave Lorna one last embrance. Lorna didn't understand though. "I didn't take my toys with me for the vacation...," she sniffed her nose.

"Lorna," her mother cut her off. "Be safe..."

"Okay. I am really sorry to interrupt, ma'am, but we need to go," Han, hardly sentimental, knew that if they lingered any longer, there was no leaving this planet, so he interruptrd the moment. The queen handed Lorna over to the Wookie and immediately glared at the smuggler.

"You better keep her out of harm's way..."

Chewie already took Lorna inside the Falcon, so Han relaxed his tension of keeping his speech as constricted as ever. "That's what yoh paid me for, your royal highness. Your daughter will be safe."

PRESENT DAY

This day has never held any sort of importance to Luke before he was reunited with Leia. And now, more than ever, he was unsure whether or not the high society party was fitted for the occasion. Just a small gathering would have been sufficient to his happiness and enough of a gift.

But he understood the importance of keeping themselves in the public eye as much as possible. Like Lorna tried to convince him before about the Jedi Order needing to be known again, a party of this scale on Coruscant reminded people of hope and helped conduct business and diplomatic matters in a very pleasant way.

So despite having felt much more comfortable in any other clothes, Luke had to look presentable and formal. Leia helped him pin his outfit down for the night: just a small varation of his usually tight black attire, to which silver details were added to the collar and around the wrists.

"Kid, I have a surprise for you!" Just as Luke was about to feel rather silly standing alone and watching the whole loud party unfold, Han's voice reminded him that he wasn't entirely alone. The ex-smuggler was already red in the cheeks with some liquor he must have downed at the bar on the banquet floor they rented for the event.