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Leida is used to attention, being the daughter of a senator and living on Coruscant. Likes it, even, when it’s things like her friends complimenting the new dress Aunt Vel brought her months ago, or her teacher praising her for her prompt memorization of the Chandrilan catechism.
The room right now is… different.
An eerie silence had fallen between her parents when the Sculduns walked in, bright golds and coppers against the white of the Coruscanti embassy apartment. Leida knew what was going to happen—Davo handed their family ceremonial knife over to her mother, who accepted it graciously, and now—
Now—
Stekan finally looks up, and stares at her with his pale watery eyes.
Stop it, she wants to say. Stop looking at me like that, you’re so annoying and spineless and—
“Could we have a moment to ourselves?” he says, his voice quiet but clear in the spacious room. This place normally hosts tens of guests for dinner parties and suchlike. Right now it’s just the six of them.
The grownups hum and sigh in surprise.
“It’s highly unusual,” Davo says. His wife schools her face against a brief flicker of surprise.
Her dad claps Leida on the shoulder. “Come on, we can back off a little bit. It’s an important step. I’m sure they’re just nervous.”
Her mother takes a deep breath. “Perrin is right. We can let them have space—we can still see them just fine from the dining room.” Davo shrugs, and they drift off.
Stekan moves closer to the window of the lounge, and Leida follows him. “You don’t have to do this,” he says.
Leida blinks. “What?”
“I mean you don’t have to—well, marry me. I know your mum is forcing you to—”
“No one is forcing me to do anything,” Leida snaps.
Stekan lowers his voice. “I know it’s tradition…”
“I like tradition.” Leida turns away from him angrily. “It’s our history. We should be proud of it.” Her stomach flutters in frustration, and she ignores it. “You know, I’m starting to think you don’t want to marry me.”
“That’s not it,” he protests.
Leida crosses her arms and stares out the window. They stay like that, in a silent impasse, for a few minutes.
Stekan sighs. The noise reminds Leida of a loth-cat she had as a pet when she was younger—she’d loved the idea, and Perrin had given in with only a little bit of begging, but it turned out to be very temperamental and not well adjusted to the constant noise and lights of Coruscant. It had always been whining and running off into corners, and chewing up her favorite dress…
“There’s this one jewelry shop, back home on Chandrila, in the city.” His voice is soft and timid, and she almost doesn’t hear him over her annoyance. “I saw a necklace they have on display there—it’s braided gold, with an amber pendant. I asked them to hold it so—so I can get it for you.”
Leida turns back, and he’s honest-to-god blushing; his whole face is pink in a splotchy sort of way that makes him look kind of stupid, but… also kind of cute.
“You’re not supposed to tell people about gifts you haven’t got them yet,” she says, but she’s run out of steam to keep being mad at him.
He smiles sheepishly. “I just thought you would like it.”
Leida sighs and waves the adults back over. Mon gives her a searching look as she hands over the knife, but Leida just nods. The weight of the knife is cold in her hand.
She makes eye contact with Stekan as she grabs the braid on the right side of her face. She’s had plenty of time to think this over: she knows what she’s doing, and she knows what’s expected of her.
“This braid binds me to my history. I leave it behind to join yours.”
The locks of hair fall away in her hand, and she thinks of the clear blue skies of Chandrila.