Raey's stomach flipped. His brain froze, making it impossible to put together a coherent sentence, and then even once he figured one out ("You are my hero, please like me,") his tongue wouldn't cooperate. He stammered soundlessly, eyes fixed on the living legend in front of him, and then looked hopefully at LN for help.

The former stormtrooper looked a lot less awe-struck, which Raey supposed made sense. Stormtroopers wouldn't have been exposed to a lot of heroic Skywalker stories over the years, and they certainly wouldn't have repeated them endlessly at night in their own heads while they should have been sleeping. Instead, LN just seemed on edge.

"What is going to be done with us?" she asked briskly, skipping straight to the point. "Raey has nothing to do with the First Order and knows nothing about them, so take that into consideration."

"Your concern for your friend is commendable," replied the princess (or, Raey wondered, was she a queen now?), "but you don't need to worry. You aren't the first defector from the First Order we've seen here, and the Resistance works with more, I am sure, that they haven't told us about. As long as you don't cause trouble for the Alderaanians, you won't find any here."

Raey squeaked. Or, at least, that's what it sounded like to him, and it was instantly mortifying. Thankfully, Leia seemed to understand the one word he had attempted to say.

"Hi to you, too," she said with a smile (right at me! he thought). "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but you should see our medics as soon as possible. My apprentice should have taken you to them right away, then gotten me, but he tends to underthink things if he has directions to follow." She sent a stern look at Ar'tak as she said this, and the alien smiled self-consciously, scratching the base of one of his horns.

"Oops," he admitted with a weak chuckle. "My apologies."

Leia walked past Raey towards the stairs, motioning with her hand for them to follow her. Raey immediately turned to do so with Ar'tak, but LN hesitated.

"Come on," Raey said through his teeth in a fierce whisper, grabbing her by the arm. "It's Leia Skywalker! She's not going to hurt you."

LN let herself be moved, but she didn't lose the look of tense unhappiness that had been clearly visible since entering the city. Raey barely cared. She would see, sooner or later, and he wasn't going to let her grumpiness ruin this moment for him. He picked up his pace to make up the moment's distance between himself and the... her.

"Y-your highness?" he managed without squeaking this time. "If you're here... and this is a secret city full of secrets... I don't suppose... your..." He lost it again and trailed off.

"Luke isn't here," replied Leia, again reading between the lines of Raey's butchered sentences. "New Alderaan was my passion, and his led him elsewhere. Though you bring up a good question, Raey. How did you and your friend find this planet? I hope our location hasn't become common knowledge to the First Order."

Raey shook his head vigorously. "No, no... at least, I hope not. I accidentally saved a Resistance pilot – that is to say, saving him was on purpose, I just didn't know he was a member of the Resistance – and he had coordinates that led us here."

"Stop stammering," muttered LN, nudging him roughly with her elbow. "You sound like a child."

Raey elbowed her back and didn't bother correcting her.

"And where is this Resistance pilot? Is that you, LN?"

LN stiffened. "No, sir. The pilot and Raey were briefly held on board the destroyer I was stationed on before the former was transferred to another ship. When I saw an opportunity to escape the First Order, I took Raey with me."

"Dameron slipped the coordinates to me before we were captured," Raey finished, latching onto LN's ability to speak properly. "I didn't know what or where they led to... neither of us did."

Leia's smile faded. "Ah. I see. So someone in the Resistance is trying to find us for some reason, but we don't know why."

"Pardon the question, but aren't you a part of the Resistance yourself?" asked LN bluntly. "The names 'Skywalker', 'Solo', and 'Organa' are well-known in connection to the Resistance, and you've claimed all three of those names."

"Oh, our names are certainly being used to draw recruits, but Luke and I have been far too busy to run the Resistance," Leia admitted. "Now, my husband likes to keep himself entertained organizing and running dreadfully dangerous missions with them, but I have enough on my hands operating New Alderaan to do more then... offer the occasional piece of advice."

Raey looked around at the city as they descended to street level. "If New Alderaan isn't a Resistance outpost, then what is it?"

"Exactly what it claims to be." Leia's voice took on a more passionate note, and her pace quickened. "Despite the loss of our homeworld, there were still millions of Alderaanians left alive after the Empire fell. It became my mission to find them again, the absent businessmen who had lost their families, the pilots with no home port, the descendants of Alderaanian blood who had integrated with other populations. Between us, there was so much of Alderaan left alive. Families who go back to the old Republic, legends and stories, culture, society... that's what we are rebuilding here."

"That's why the First Order wants to find you," realized LN aloud. "As a rebirth of the Empire, they would want to make sure the legacy of Alderaan stays dead, to prove no one can bring back what the Empire destroyed."

Leia's expression darkened. "If that was all, we would not be in nearly as much danger as we are. Alderaan's was not the only legacy I meant to save on this uncharted world."

Raey's heart leapt in his chest. "The Jedi," he whispered eagerly. "You're training Jedi."

"A few," Leia agreed, and Ar'tak tried hard not to looked pleased with himself. "But I did not go out looking for recruits, like Luke did." She began to say more, then stopped with a wry smile. Raey followed her gaze and saw a little medical facility tucked between houses. "But we're here, and it is hard to explain what I do here in a few words. Go, let the doctors fix you up, and get some rest. Tomorrow, if you would, come back to the temple and we will finish our talk. I will be busy in the morning, but come after noon and we will make time."

LN looked at Raey, almost like she wanted to follow his lead on this one. After her constantly throwing orders around, it was a nice change.

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"Alright, we'll be there," he said eagerly, then hastily added, "your highness."

"Just Leia," said the princess with that gentle smile. "Rest well."

.

LN's nose hurt.

She lay in her hospital room, a tiny but private square containing a bed, footlocker, and a window covered by light shades with flowers on the sill. The light had been turned off, but the moon shone in the window so brightly that the vase of flowers cast a big shadow on the opposite wall.

She couldn't sleep.

Raey was in the next room, and LN bet he wasn't sleeping, either, but for very different reasons. He would be tossing and turning, too excited by the idea of heroes and Jedi and princesses to sleep. Meanwhile, LN stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep because the moon was shining in her window.

And, even with the light proving she was alone, she could still see them.

She closed her eyes. She imagined their soft movements, the subtle sounds of a dozen quiet sleepers all occupying the same room. Breathing, a shift of the blankets, and, occasionally, the nervous tapping of one trooper in particular, slow and rhythmic.

LN turned over, feeling suddenly sick. She hugged her big, puffy hospital pillow and buried her face in the soft cloth.

I'm sorry.

.

It wasn't quite awakening to the sound of birdsong, but Raey still felt like he was rising from sleep in the middle of some idyllic fantasy. Outside his window, he could hear the babble of content people exchanging good mornings, news, and declaring the quality and price of their goods. Speeders added their roars, but even they could not drown out the people. It was the sound of a city bursting with peace and purpose, and Raey lay still for minutes just listening to the hubbub.

Then, fully awake, he remembered he had something to do today. He had a meeting scheduled... with Leia Skywalker Organa.

…-Solo.

The hospital treated their patients like royalty. Raey found a change of clothes sitting in protective plastic on top of the footlocker, and there was a little bathroom tucked into the corner of his room with a door and everything. Feeling unusually free from urgent business, Raey let himself take the time to clean up properly.

Someone had left a comb on the sink. As he washed his face and dug dirt out from under his fingernails, Raey considered the comb carefully. Then he steeled himself, locked the door, and began to undo the greasy string that had tied his hair-knots for more then a year.

When he finally came out of his room, dressed in the hospital's offering of white tunic and tan pants, his hair was still wet. It felt weird to walk around with his hair down after it had been tied up for so long, but he kept the filthy strings looped around his wrist so he could put it back in its knots again as soon as it was dry.

He found LN in the hall, a tray of food on her lap and another sitting beside her. She was wearing the same sort of loose, soft clothes the Alderaanians had given him, and her barely-damp hair stuck out sideways in a way that made her look way younger then her usual scowl implied.

Then she looked up, saw him, and nearly choked on her toast.

"I thought your hair was practically black," she managed between a cough and a drink of water. Then, "Have you ever had a haircut?"

Raey snorted, grabbing the tray of food he assumed was for him.

"Have you ever tried to cut your hair with a rusty saw? How about a plasma cutter? I have – with both – once. Never again."

"The inspection officer would have a fit seeing you," LN muttered, then took a big bite of her breakfast-style-meat-of-unknown-origin. "I can't believe you turned middling-brown into dirty..."

"We have bigger things to talk about then my hair!" protested Raey, her comments making him uncomfortable. Before he could think of something, LN slid in with a perfectly-timed, positively smirking,

"Like what?"

"Like what are we going to do about that Knight that was hunting us," Raey made up on the spot. LN shrugged, giving her utmost attention to her breakfast.

"It was an acolyte of the Knights – you can tell by the lack of armor – and the answer is nothing. There's nothing we can do except tell the princess everything and hope we don't get thrown in solitary or executed."

"Okay, then what are we going to do to make the... the princess like us?"

LN looked at Raey sideways, chewing thoughtfully on a forkful of mysterious vegetables. "Good question. You should be fine simply being yourself. You clearly worship the ground she walks on, so just try not to make a fool of yourself and you two should get along."

Raey felt his face flush and immediately shoved half a piece of toast into his mouth.

"I, meanwhile, will attempt to prove my usefulness and sincerity. I had no plans after getting away from the First Order, so if they demand some kind of physical servitude in exchange for letting me live, I wouldn't really mind." LN's voice lowered as she spoke, getting quieter and more thoughtful with each thought. "I can think of worse worlds to hide on, and if the First Order does come here because of what we've done... I can at least try to lessen the blow."

Raey paused, already halfway through the plentiful breakfast. "You... just want to stay here?"

LN nearly shrugged. One shoulder twitched, and she bobbed her head noncommittally from side to side. "What else would I do? The only people I know are on the Domination. I have no family, no friends, nowhere to go back to. Why not stay here?"

"What about the rest of the galaxy?" insisted Raey. "There is so much to learn, so much to see... I've been on the same planet all my life until now – I'm not going to settle for the first new world I crash land on." He shoved his fork sideways through his mystery-sausage. "Coruscant. That's my first goal. After that... wherever the stars lead."

LN stayed silent for a long moment, quietly eating the last crumbs of her meal. Then, when the last vegetable was gone, "Then I hope the First Order forgets you, Raey, because until their hunt is off, you can't show your face on Coruscant. Or anywhere an Order bounty could be seen."

There was no response to that. Raey ate in grim silence, then took his empty tray to the smiling nurse at the desk.

LN sat on her hallway bench, staring at her tray, until Raey lost sight of her around the corner.

.

The humidity that had been unbearable in the jungle seemed somewhat more tame in the city, undoubtedly due to some powerful air-manipulation machines hidden within the city. Raey bet they had some huge industrial vaporators pumping jungle dampness into the canal, scrubbing the air dry before sending it back into the city.

For a while, he wandered around trying to find them, but aside from some cool air vents that provided a delightful respite whenever he passed them, he found no evidence of giant vaporators. And there wasn't time to go prying properly, either – he had a meeting on the mountainside to get to.

Whatever they were using, it didn't do anything to counter the intense sunlight. Raey was glad they had given him something light and loose to wear. He kept his pace slow and stuck to the shadows of awnings and walls wherever possible, like he would have in the desert.

LN was waiting for him at the foot of the temple stairs, visibly sweating (which made her hair even spikier then before). The sight of her made Raey a little self-conscious about having walked out on her earlier, but she didn't bring it up so neither did he. She just turned and started up the stairs, leaving Raey to follow a few steps behind.

Nope.

Raey skipped a few steps and caught up with her, then passed her. Her huff of protest brought a teasing smile to his lips, but she didn't see it as Raey, nowhere near as worn-down by the heat as the trooper raised in climate control, climbed the steps steadily two at a time.

He waited for her at the top, a gesture she took with a grumpy, sweaty scowl.

"Your armor must have great conditioning," he commented as she caught her breath. "You were perfectly fine leaving me behind in the jungle, but now that we're both in the same clothes..."

"Another word, and I'll report you," warned LN, an idle threat she probably didn't fully realize meant nothing to him. The tone suggested she wasn't as annoyed as she looked, though, so Raey took it without comment.

"Come on," he said eagerly. "We've got a meeting with the princess."