Chapter Text
A Prince of the Realm does not slouch.
It had been drilled into Ben, Imperial Prince of the House Organa and Heir to Alderaan, his entire life – it was almost unconscious now, the way he stands tall in front of the massive windows of this room that look out on the mountains in the distance. He almost wishes to slouch now, simply from spite, knowing as he does that his grandmother could enter the room at any moment and – of course – would notice. As he knows, she would make her disapproval known if only by the twisting of her classically beautiful lips and a tilt of her graceful head.
He resists the urge; he knows better, after all, to tempt fate, and all the Makers know he was in enough trouble. Forcing himself instead to concentrate on the remarkable view, he centres himself in his person and in the Force just as uncle Luke has taught him – zeroing his focus in on the distant snow-capped mountains and green-covered slopes he can see even from here.
The largest and tallest mountain range in the world – he would argue the most beautiful – forms the centre of his grandmother’s favourite view. When she’d gone into semi-reclusion following the extended mourning period following the retirement of Ben’s grandfather almost a decade ago, she’d chosen these very rooms and this very setting as her personal domain. It’s a beautiful view, and it is hardly the fault of the scenery that he has almost an unconscious reaction to the glass panes that separate him from it – the urge to both smudge the pristine glass with his sweaty paws and to break that glass and escape to the cool air of the mountains it showcases.
Some of his favourite memories are of the summer vacations he’s spent with his family in those very mountains – the fresh, bright, cool mountain air a relief, of course, as is the relaxation of royal protocols, the freedom from his over-scheduled days. Adding to that, the unfettered access to his busy family, particularly his mother and, even, sometimes, his grandfather, only adds to his almost visceral longing for that place. There’s an understanding, in Alderaan, that when the Royal family is in retreat at the ‘family cottage,’ they are to be treated almost as civilians, are to be left to family affairs and are to be disturbed in extreme cases of needs of State.
It has rarely happened, for the vacations of the Alderaan family to those mountains to be disturbed – the most notable example being during the last Imperial war. That's an event which occurred well before his time, though, even before his parents had met, so, at most, he's heard stories.
His mother sometimes speaks of those times – of her golden, untroubled childhood – before the messenger came running to the door, a physical copy of the announcement of the dissolution of the Imperial Senate clutched in her hand. She sees the value of passing that history along; she has told him, just as she sees the value of speaking of her actions during the war itself, if in highly limited and edited terms. If he asks, if he presses, for an account of those days, she will speak of her memories of those events. Sometimes.
His grandmother keeps her memories of those days closer to her heart and does not speak of them, apparently unwilling to think much on those days she’d almost lost both her husband and her daughter. Ben knows from the way her eyes narrow, if only by a fraction, when the subject arises that it remains a sore topic. As always, his grandfather respects her wishes, and the subject is thus changed when she is present.
It’s hard not to wonder how that impacts the way shadows at times disrupt those idyllic family vacations.
Regardless, it remains his favourite place, the Organa chalet in the country, though visiting is more complicated now that he’s older. The location hasn’t been spoiled, of course, any more than has been the view, but there is an added complexity layered on to it, like a miasma added to an old painting. Since the celebration of his majority over three years ago, the attention he attracts has only intensified, to the point it almost reaches even the edges of his family retreat. Not entirely, of course, never that, the press knows better than to intrude that far, but there’s still an unspoken conversation that seems to hang in the air around him as to his marital intentions – not necessarily an ‘if’ rather than a ‘when.’
He misses the days when he hadn't to think of it daily - wishes there weren't so many knowing looks and hopeful, careful inquiries as to his dating history when the family gathered.
Still, he loves that family retreat, just as he loves this view, even if he’s almost memorized it. Furthering to the complications of his family, even without the pleasant memories associated, he would have known this view intimately in any case – his grandmother likes to have him wait when she calls him in for ‘tea’. It is understood that she does so when she's serious matters to discuss, when she has disapproved of his actions or has views as to his future plans - and, as he is not the most tractable of grandchildren, she has called him in for ‘tea’ many, many times, particularly during the course of his adolescence.
When Her Imperial Majesty, Breha Organa, Dowager Queen of Alderaan, Beloved Wife of Bail Organa and Scion of the Elder Houses, summons you to tea, you go, favourite (and only) grandson or not.
He’s a man now, grown; he towers over her in fact, but he fails to see that inherent need to please his grandmother changing any time soon.
Yes, Ben knows better than to defy his grandmother in something as simple as slouching – he’s already disappointed her so grievously, and the day has just begun.
Turning attentively as the door opens with ceremony and the golden protocol droid enters and stands to the side to solicitously usher in his grandmother, Ben moves quickly and attentively to escort her to the small tea table by the windows. As she arrives, he's careful to push back her chair and to seat her as he’s done even before he had reached his tenth year.
As he does so, he notes that his grandmother’s icy-white hair - arranged in braids even more ornate than his mother’s crown - is perfectly styled, as is her formal walking gown in deepest blue. Her make-up, as always, has been applied flawlessly to accent her delicate bone structure and emphasize her classically beautiful features. Tiny, she barely reaches his bicep, being even smaller in frame than is his mother, and he has a flash – it almost takes him to his knees, the impact of the memory – of the moment when he’d been eight years old and had looked her in the eye for the first time.
At that moment, he’d realized, as he does now, again, that, even more than is the case with his mother, his grandmother’s will far outreaches the impact of her dainty frame.
There’s no sight, he sees, of the ivory-tipped cane that the doctor had strongly advised she use and that Ben himself had gifted her on her last birthday, but then, that’s hardly surprising. He had noted, though, that she had let one graceful hand adorned with multiple azure rings rest only for a fraction on C3-P0’s arm as she'd entered. Had noticed as well that she’d stayed closer to he himself as he'd seated her than she’d used to, as if to be sure to have access to a steadying force within reach - he makes a mental note to consult with his mother. Discreetly, of course. He’s no wish to be disembowelled by his beloved grandmother, and she does not take kindly to 'meddling'.
For now, he ensures she’s seated comfortably – her back, as always, is ramrod straight, having never touched the back of her chair – before he moves to take his seat opposite her at the small table.
Her silence the entire time tells him, if indeed, he needed to be told, all that he needs to be told.
They speak on inconsequential things for the first half an hour of his visit as his grandmother pours him tea and places dainties on his plate. In deference to his appetite – she insists on believing it still growing, though, given his unfortunate height and size, he sincerely hopes not. He already feels out of place, standing like a beanpole, towering several inches over even his tall father, and he knows that his width makes people feel uncomfortable, no matter how he tries not to loom over them.
His grandmother's refusal to address immediately the reason for calling him here is one of her favourite tactics he knows – to make him wait, to make him sweat, to draw out that tension to its ultimate point, to make it almost painful to have to sit there and wonder when the axe will drop. She's a master at stretching out the waiting before dropping the hammer, making you wait so long at times that you might almost forget she meant to destroy you before she moves to do so. His grandfather, he knows, wields the same tactic like a scalpel. It’s an art, one he himself has struggled to learn despite decades of trying while taking his lessons at her knee and that of her daughter.
His mother is also adept at it, for all that her temper is legendary and was apparently a concern to his grandmother when she was younger. But then, it is well known that his mother has patience in spades.
“Patience and temper all wrapped in one,” his grandfather had once teased her. “A lethal combination.”
Ben had never been sure whether it had been a joke or not.
“Everything about her Imperial Highness is lethal,” his father had confirmed, somehow managing to block the half-serious blow from his wife even from close proximity and even with one arm wrapped around her shoulders. He'd gain forgiveness, seemingly, by moving to buss Leia's forehead as she struggled not to laugh. “It’s why we love her.”
Sadly, Ben had inherited too much of his mother’s temper and too little of her legendary control.
Further, too much like his father – a blessing and a curse – Ben had never managed to perfect that balancing act of disapproval and disappointment the rest of his family have forged into a weapon. Rather, like his father, he has too much impatience to his character.
The words rush out of him now in a rush before he manages to stop it as he can't help but ask his grandmother as she lets the silence hang.
"You don't worry about how much like my father I am?"
There had been a conversation he was not meant to have been privy to, he was sure, when he was a child; the confidential confidences of two Privy Councillors speaking in hushed whispers as they walked out of the Queen's reception impossible not to overhear.
'He's got too much of his father in him, that boy.'
He was never meant to overhear their thoughts on his character, he knew; it was an accident, a passing thought, but it haunts him even now, that passing assessment.
Too much of his father in him.
His mother had certainly had her share of suitors - he's met some of them - rich, cultured, erudite, mannered, including princes of the realm and galactic leaders. Makers, even Uncle Lando had the manners and smooth approach his father lacked and which would have served him well in the Alderaanian court.
It's impossible not to wonder at how his grandparents had taken it, their precious daughter choosing a scoundrel - no name, no family to speak of other than Uncle Chewie, no property except the clothes on his back and a beaten-up Correllian freighter won in a rigged poker game - and Ben is sure they would have chosen differently for her. Han, he's confident they would have thought, is too wild, too loud, too unruly, too independent, too unpredictable. Too messy. Too prone to acting without thinking and diving in headlong without so much of a plan - holding to the force of blaster and his own talents.
Yes, he's sure Grandmama and Grandfather would have chosen differently than his father as the Prince Consort to the future Queen Leia, which means he can't help but wonder if they would have chosen differently for her son. Maybe his grandmother would have preferred a more tractable grandson, certainly a less impatient one.
Too much of his father in him.
He can't help but think maybe it's true.
He's always felt just that little bit caged; he's always overly impulsive; he's always just wanted to fly.
Too much of his father in him.
His musings are interrupted by the feeling of his grandmother's soft hand on his and a gentle smile on her lips, her eyes soft.
"You are perfectly yourself in every way, my Ben."
A squeeze of her hand - she's so strong, is grandmama, just like her daughter - and the smile turns into the rare grin that is his favourite.
"As is your father," she sips her tea, a fond remembrance in her gaze. "He may drive me to distraction, but he has never caused me serious concern."
Before Ben can contradict her - his father is notorious for impinging on his grandmother's sense of propriety ('shirts are meant to be buttoned at formal events, Han') and adherence to protocol (he never has learned how to read a clock) - she raises one slim hand, adorned only with her wedding set, a delicate spray of diamonds for an engagement ring and a plain band to match, in remonstrance.
"A rogue he may be, your father, but he has always been the perfect complement to my daughter. And his virtues, in addition to his vices, are visible in spades. Your father, my dear boy," here she pauses in serious reflection as she sips her strong black tea, "believes in loyalty and family above all. And say what you will about him, and I certainly have; he always comes through for you and your mother."
It's a truth little acknowledged by his critics.
The Solo-Organa marriage may not be the serene and untrammelled glory that is the legendary partnership of Ben's grandparents - his parents' bickering is legendary, and not all of it lands friendly - but they support each other, lean into each other as two opposing parts of a whole. They form something larger even than should the sum of their oversized personalities together.
And as unpredictable, even at times unreliable as he may be, Han Solo is legendary for his devotion to his family - he always comes through when it counts.
“Besides,” his grandmother continues, apparently ready to return to why she’d ‘invited’ him here. “While your father doesn’t always listen, he does pay attention.”
She hides her smile in her dainty cup of the finest china, laughing apparently at a private joke.
“Even if you have to take him by the ear sometimes to get him to do so.”
Looking at him with those serious brown eyes that have carefully assessed him his entire life – he’s sure she gazed at him so when he first came into the world and lay carefully cradled in the Crown Princess’s arms – she asks carefully and quietly in devastating tones the question he knows somehow she has brought him here to hear.
“Did I not tell you to have a care, Ben?”
The chastisement in her tone rings clear, but then, given her decades of experience, the Queen of Alderaan has long been adept in such techniques. They say her ability to strip a foreign diplomat to their very bones using only the strength of her icy tone is legendary, and though he’s never seen it, Ben has heard enough stories to believe it.
Nevertheless, he can’t help but try to defend himself – it isn’t really his fault, this whole mess he now finds himself in.
“She-” he begins only to wince at how his grandmama raises a single delicate brow in remonstrance.
She sighs heavily, and suddenly he’s seven again, caught digging in the dirt of the royal rose garden alongside the ice fox of Crait, who had been his faithful companion his entire childhood.
“It is immaterial how strong she is in the Force,” she tells him now, somehow registering the objections he had been about to make, the disapproval in her gaze only intensifying now that they have reached the purpose of her summons. “She is friable, as you are well aware, and she is in your care.”
She is Rey, Imperial Princess of Coruscant, newly recovered and 'beloved' granddaughter of the Emperor; she is the bane of his existence and yes, sadly, she is in his care.
There are any number of people he could blame for his predicament. Still, ultimately he chooses, as he has chosen long ago, to blame those ultimately responsible for his disappointment, the unlikely combination of Emperor Palpatine and his confounded, unfortunately all-too absent godfather, his least favourite uncle, Luke Skywalker. Thanks to them, he’s tied to the company of this unsettling girl for the foreseeable future.
He does not appreciate how they have been thrown together, even if he might, possibly, find himself drawn to Rey in ways he does not understand.
He had not liked, had not liked at all, the assessing look in his grandmother’s eye as she had watched them together.
The sooner the girl goes back to her own world and her own grandfather and her own court, the better – he’s trouble enough without squiring the Heir to the Empire about Alderaan. Meanwhile, he’s running out of ways to avoid Rey that don’t result in invoking his grandmother’s wrath.
If only Rey weren’t almost as strong in the Force as he was.
If only he didn't her so intriguing - her remarkable beauty being but the smallest part of her appeal.
If only he didn’t find such solace in her rare, bright smile.
He sighs - and there was a good six months left in her scheduled visit to Alderaan.