Chapter Text
History in the Making on Chandrila!
Negotiations are underway for the marriage of the 26-year old heiress of the Sartha industrial fortune to the 18-year old daughter of an antique merchant! Her dowry is to be the acquisition of a priceless cultural artifact, the Chandi Merle! This will raise an already wealthy and powerful family to new heights of prominence!
(-The Nebula, a Bormea Sector tabloid)
Chandrila, Ananta continent, Emita City, offices of the Sartha family’s solicitors.12 BBY.
The first time Kleya met the woman who would become her wife, betrothal negotiations were already nearly complete, and she did not expect any surprises. Her and Luthen’s investigations had turned up a history of athletics and a great deal of ongoing travel and partying, so Kleya held out no great hope of intellectual companionship. Not that many could offer her that, she reflected without modesty. But it would all be worth it.
The first thing she noticed about Vel Sartha, the object of this second phase of her greatest plan to date, was with a spy’s observation of body language: she wore the clothing of a Chandrilan noble like a disguise or a costume. Strange. Kleya’s hired chaperone (actually a local expert on Chandrilan/Galactic cultural interface) murmured that the Sartha heiress was in men’s style robes. Perhaps that explained it.
The second thing Kleya noticed was the woman’s striking beauty, even more evident in person than in the holos she’d studied. Even among citizens of a planet that prized beauty and refinement, Vel’s wide, clear eyes and symmetrical features commanded attention. And yet she’d not married before now, in a culture known for early pairings. Another puzzle.
And then there were Vel’s expressions. Those immense blue eyes - surely they couldn’t be natural! - fell into sadness or worry when the Sartha heiress was preoccupied. Vel barely glanced at her parents, and when she did, it was with a painfully obvious (to Kleya) forced neutrality, clearly covering some darker emotion. The elder Sarthas’ effusive delight with the proceedings seemed genuine, but their expressions would occasionally falter to something like confusion when looking at their daughter. Kleya was beginning to share the sensation.
After introductions, Luthen retired with the Sartha parents to a conference room for some penultimate round of betrothal negotiations. “We’ll just leave you two alone to get better acquainted!” tittered Vel’s mother, Canna.
This was an absurd notion, with two chaperones in the room as well as actual human servants. Vel’s lips twisted in something like irony and her eyes rolled, even as Kleya felt herself echo the gesture. They caught each other at it; Vel laughed softly and Kleya felt her own expression soften. Perhaps this woman wasn’t entirely meat-headed, after all. And her laugh wasn’t unpleasant.
The presence of so many witnesses hampered truly private conversation, and the need to avoid potential offense to various Chandrilan customs limited her further, but there was still plenty that Kleya could learn, and perhaps start solving the mystery before her.
“Miss Sartha, if I may ask, why are you wearing masculine robes?”
Vel’s little ironic smile blossomed to an outright smirk as she pronounced, “It’s the latest development in the plan they’re negotiating. Strange to say, but it’s out of respect for Chandrilan customs. For the wedding and certain ongoing social purposes, one of us is to be labeled the husband. I volunteered, and the clothes are surprisingly comfortable.” Mistaking Kleya’s startled look, Vel hurriedly continued, “Oh, er, happy to switch if you’d rather, though? It’s only, I thought you’d have enough to learn about navigating Chandrilan culture without making it even harder.”
They went for it! She’d suggested it to Luthen almost as a joke, a sop to Chandrila’s exclusively heteronormative marriage traditions. She had been confident no Chandrilan woman would be willing to bend her society’s gender roles to that extent. And yet Vel had volunteered. Yet another mystery.
“No, I’m sure you’re right, that would be more difficult. If you’re positive you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. And please call me Vel. How are you finding your studies of Chandrilan culture? I understand you’ve begun studying the language?”
“Then you must call me ‘Kleya’.” And from that point they conversed pleasantly enough.
Vel was a little vague about her recent Outer Rim travels (“Just following the parties, you know? Have you traveled much?”) and Kleya resigned herself to an hour of banalities. Whatever the mystery of Vel Sartha, jock, party girl, heiress to industrial and banking interests, and favorite cousin of Senator Mon Mothma, she seemed personally harmless enough. Pleasant, even. Kleya decided to proceed with the plan.
Chandrila, Ananta continent, Emita City, Sartha Estate Dance Hall. 12 BBY.
The second time Kleya met Vel, it was to sign the betrothal contracts, but there was little opportunity to talk. The third time they met was Kleya’s first visit to the Sartha family’s extensive Emita City estate. With Emita city the only place on Chandrila zoned for industry, the Sartha family was naturally based here. Kleya and her chaperone/fixer were greeted at the gate by a bowing servant who led them inside.
The estate was as grand as the holos had made it look, full of Chandrilan and Galactic art, and even some historical artifacts. Kleya could appreciate the importance of appearances and good impressions, and could not fault the display of taste and wealth, but found to her relief that she was not over-awed by it.
At the Emita City townhouse she and Luthen had rented, Kleya now possessed a complete Chandrilan wardrobe suitable for her station. Today she was clad in a relatively simple dress, and accompanied by her chaperone for a lesson in dance and etiquette for the rapidly approaching wedding, to be followed later in the day by a tour of parts of the estate. They were led to a sitting room where Vel (and her own chaperone) waited with light refreshments. The omnipresent Chandrilan tea was of course on offer, but Kleya was pleased to see that there was also caf.
Vel was once again dressed in robes and seemed quite cheerful about the day’s plan when Kleya asked her about it. “Oh, yes, I always enjoyed the dance lessons when I was younger. Just another sport, really. Hopefully learning the boy’s part won’t be too difficult, they’re pretty symmetric. And I hope that the etiquette lessons will be useful for you, settling in here. We have so many traditions and ceremonies, this’ll help sort you out.”
When they made their way to the dance hall for their lesson, they found it already occupied by a jolly-looking woman with gleaming steel-grey hair and perfect posture. A man of similar years stood nearby. There was indirect light from north-facing windows. The floor’s parquet inlay was intricate and had been recently polished with some citrus-scented wax. The overall effect was pleasant, tasteful.
“Vel, you little scamp, welcome home!” The woman came over to meet Vel, and grasped her hands with every appearance of delight.
Vel looked surprised and pleased. “Why, Madame Ernam! I had no idea you’d be one of our instructors today. It’s so good to see you again. May I present my fiancée, Miss Kleya Rael? Kleya, this is Madame Wat Ernam. She was my dancing and etiquette teacher when I was a child.”
“Hello, Madame. I look forward to working with you today.”
“Pleased to meet you, my dear! And this is my colleague Vor Talis. He’ll be working Vel on the masculine dance parts and some points of gentlemanly behavior.”
Talis made a short bow, his face unreadable.
“How do you do, Maestro Talis?” Vel asked, and gave a curtsy.
“No, Vel, I’m afraid that won’t do,” interjected Madame Ernam.
Kleya was surprised, as it looked to her to be a well-executed gesture, elegant even. Vel looked momentarily puzzled, then smiled. “Of course, you’re correct, Madame.” Then she performed a competent if less-elegant bow toward Maestro Talis.
Talis nodded thoughtfully and spoke for the first time, his voice neutral. “Nothing practice won’t fix.”
Ernam clapped her hands. “Good! Today’s dance will be the first, formal wedding dance between you two as that’s the most pressing need. Then we’ll work on etiquette. Yes, Vel, I know you think you’ve learned it all before, but there will be nuances in your new role that Maestro Talis can help you with.”
It’s not a very complicated dance, Kleya thought during the lesson. And soon enough the teachers and chaperones retired to little padded sofas with tea to watch her and Vel practice.
“Vel, can you talk and dance at the same time? I have so many questions.” Accompanied always by chaperones, it was their first chance to speak privately, beyond introductions and banalities.
“Well, I’m curious about you, too, but go ahead,” Vel said with a smile.
“I’m told you resisted your family’s demands that you marry for a decade. So why do this now?”
Vel apparently saw nothing untoward in this question. “It’s complicated. In part, it’s because I want the social freedom and financial control that a married role gives me in Chandrilan society. For all my ambivalence, it’s painful to be cut off from my home.” Vel guided Kleya through a turn that reoriented their pattern 90 degrees, “And I have some … let’s just say I have some plans for the family fortune – investments, charities and such. As my wife, you’ll have similar social and financial privileges.”
Vel looked like she was about to say more, but Kleya didn’t let herself be sidetracked just yet. “And yet you never did this before. Why not?”
“Because I disapprove of child marriage on principle.” Then Vel appeared to visibly steel herself before continuing, “And also because I refused to marry a boy or a man, which was my only option in Chandrilan society.”
“And I …represent a solution to that problem,” Kleya reasoned.
“Correct. The legal fiction that I am to be the “husband” in our marriage is unprecedented. It’s only the unique cultural impact of the Merle that makes this possible.” She hesitated, then added seriously, “I hope you’ve been warned to expect some social friction.”
The next turn of the dance returned them to their previous angle.
“I’d like to come back to that social context later. Soon. For now I want to know more about you. Why wouldn’t you accept a man? Or a boy when you were younger?” Kleya asked. She was beginning to have an inkling, of course, but her briefings on Chandrilan customs had been crystal clear on this planet’s profound heteronormativity, rarely seen to such an extent on other worlds, and she was wary of a mis-step. And it would be interesting to hear Vel’s answer.
Vel was quiet for a moment. “You deserve an answer. This is, well, I expect it’s something of an open secret within the family, but I’ll ask for your discretion, especially here or around Chandrilans. Or the press, anywhere. Well, just your discretion in general, alright?”
“Yes, I can be discreet,” Kleya assured her. She was on some level of course pleased by the trust from Vel, but also appalled from a security standpoint that Vel would confide in her, someone she barely knew.
Vel continued, “I don’t know how sheltered you’ve been, how to explain this, so bear with me. My … affections are only for women. Do you … do you understand that?”
Kleya nodded slowly, her guess confirmed. “Yes, it was covered in my education, and is relatively common on other planets,” she answered, buying time to think through the implications. “Thank you for explaining. I won’t tell anyone unless you say it’s alright.” Either Luthen’s intel gathering had failed to turn up that tidbit or he had not shared it with her; should she tell him? She had assumed that a marriage to a Chandrilan woman would be a mere formality, that perhaps they’d become friends, and simply take men as lovers if they wished. She herself had never yet been interested in doing so, being fully focused on destroying the Empire, but she recognized the possibility in principle.
The next phase of the dance required Vel’s hands on Kleya’s waist. While Kleya did not care to be touched casually, it was something she could certainly tolerate in the formal context of a dance, especially as Vel’s hands offered nothing but technically correct placement and took no liberties.
But the idea of culturally required touch gave her a horrible idea.
“Vel, what happens on the night of the wedding?,” she asked urgently. “Is it expected that… I don’t want, I mean, are you going to …” she trailed off, uncharacteristically awkward and conscious of what she had just implied to this woman who had only ever been polite, friendly, and probably even honest with her. Kleya felt herself go red, but didn’t retract the question.
Vel’s expression shifted from puzzled to appalled to a complicated sort of angry concern, jaw thrust forward, nostrils flaring. She took a moment to calm herself before replying firmly, “No, definitely not.”
A temper, but a grasp on it, Kleya thought, and added this to the mental picture she was building of her fiancé.
“No,” Vel repeated firmly. “I’ve never forced myself on anyone and don’t intend to start now. You need not fear that from me. Ever.” Then she went quiet again as they negotiated some of the more complicated footwork and arm motions, and took a deep breath. “I don’t blame you for asking. You’ve no reason to trust Chandrilans in general, or me in particular. I’ve been avoiding Chandrilan marriage since I was a child in part because I didn’t want a boy, or worse, a man, to force himself on me, and I’m not such a hypocrite that I’ll turn around and do that myself, not to anyone, much less a child.”
Kleya went quiet in turn, considering this. Vel guided them though another dance maneuver, then continued, more gently, “I know it’s a lot to take on trust, honestly I do. I hope you can believe me. If you can’t, I’ll understand and call off the engagement myself so nobody blames you. In fact, the offer is there if you’re under any coercion at all. Tell me now, and I’ll call it off, make up some pretext.”
This was by far the most Vel had ever said to her in one go, and she certainly seemed earnest.
“Er, thank you. I’m not being coerced. And I want to believe you, I do! I’m here because I have my own reasons for agreeing in the first place! But your reassurance doesn’t entirely hold. I’m not a child, Vel. Not here and not on Coruscant.”
Vel managed to mostly suppress a smile, and Kleya realized how, well, childish her assertion must have sounded. “That’s true; they told me you were 18 standard?” At Kleya’s nod, Vel continued earnestly, “But Kleya, you are young, a lot younger than me, and they’ve styled you to look like a traditional Chandrilan bride, which means even younger. That’s not… I’m not … trying to insult you or anything. But I’m not interested in … that.”
Vel looked honestly disturbed, and it’s that fact that reassured Kleya as much as anything.
She took pity on Vel and changed the subject. “So, financial control… what are these plans of yours for the family fortune?”
Vel’s face cleared in relief, but she didn’t reply immediately. Then she answered a little vaguely, “I thought I’d start with relief work. My cousin Mon funds several charities and together we can have an even bigger impact.”
Perfect! This was the conversational opening she’d been hoping for, half the true prize of this venture for her and Luthen. “I’ve heard so much about Senator Mothma and hope to meet her soon. Tell me more about these charities … I should have some plans for your family fortune, too, and a united front would be better, I trust?”
They continued chatting, and Kleya managed to salt in comments about her plans to become involved in the family banking concerns. Perhaps saying “Helping run my father’s business has been so interesting! I can’t wait to learn more about finance,” had been laying it on a bit thick, but Vel merely raised her eyebrows a little and offered to put her in touch with someone.
By the time they broke for refreshments, Kleya was feeling good about her upcoming nuptials, and about her kind, principled, if somewhat superficial fiancé. The rapidly-approaching wedding would be an excellent networking opportunity for her and Luthen in the service of their plan.