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I– don’t know how I got here but suddenly I’m writing a sidebar where Kes is 10 and nervously trailing behind his mother on a Grown-Up Diplomatic Mission and is utterly enchanted when there’s a girl just a little younger than him standing behind the queen and her hair is so shiny and she’s so beautiful and oh no, thinks Lita Dameron, looking over at her star-struck son, this could be a problem.
Alderaan wasn’t Lita Dameron’s favorite planet, but it was near the top. She had come here when it was her time to give birth, and consequently tracked its calendar all the time to keep track of her son’s age. It wasn’t quite the right climate for her, wasn’t quite what they were looking for— mostly, it was too expensive for them to live there, they’d never be able to afford any land. And so she always found things to remind herself of why it wasn’t perfect, when she was here.
Because the thing was, she liked it here.
She’d brought her son along a few times, back to visit his native planet. She’d come here to deliver him partly because her health hadn’t been great and Norasol had been too terrified to help her deliver a baby alone, and partly because she hadn’t wanted to keep tracking the moon phases of the miserable little backwater where they were living for the rest of Kes’s life. Hopefully they’d have left it long before he was old enough to keep track on his own.
He loved Alderaan, always seemed happier here. Now, though, he was old enough to really pay attention. He was ten, which was when according to their customs you began to speak to a child as though he were an adult, treat him with expectations of maturity. He was taking it very seriously, had been following her around with big serious eyes ever since his birthday and the little ceremony they’d had. (His father had attended, which had only reinforced to Kes how important it was, though Lita wasn’t sure that the man had really understood. She was never really sure, with him. Fortunately, Kes had apparently inherited his good looks and not his uncertain intellect.)
Today he was following her solemnly down a corridor of the royal complex, and it had taken everything she had in her not to pinch his cheeks this morning when he’d turned up in full traditional dress, hat and vest and shirt, and trousers hemmed up so he wasn’t swimming in them, looking absolutely adorable. He was such a handsome boy, and so serious, and so clever, and if only they could figure out how to get his reading up to speed. But even that— he was slow, but he got there if you gave him time, and he understood the concepts immediately.
He wasn’t stupid. Lita supposed he wouldn’t properly be a Dameron if there weren’t something rocky about the road he had to travel. She just hoped that was the hardest it got, for him.
Well, that was why they were here.
She paused with him in the antechamber, and cast a practiced matriarchal eye over him, looking for the usual smudges and smears and turned-up collars and so on. But he was immaculate. She gave in, then, to the urge, and thumbed at his cheek gently. “You look so grown,” she said.
“I’m ten, Mama,” he said seriously. “That is grown.”
He was tall for his age, and now he was only about the length of her hand shorter than Lita herself. She barely had to bend to kiss his cheek. “It is,” she said. “Remember to take your hat off in the queen’s presence.”
“I know,” he said, a little too fast, but it wasn’t backtalk, he was just reassuring her.
“How are you such a sweet boy?” she asked him, sincerely, investigating his face for a moment. He hadn’t really known much sweetness, in his short life.
Of course he had no notion of how to answer such a question, and looked a little puzzled, shrugging. She bestowed one last kiss on his still-baby-round cheek, and straightened his tie a little. “All right,” she said, and went to the door where the chamberlain was watching them with a soft expression. “Are they ready for us?”
“Someone is presenting now,” the chamberlain said, “but the room is not crowded, you may proceed. You know the standard etiquette.”
“I do,” Lita said.
“I like your new assistant,” the chamberlain added. “What a well turned-out young man. I think you’ll find Queen Breha has an assistant of her own today.”
Kes’s eyes moved questioningly from the chamberlain to Lita and back, but Lita didn’t know what that meant either, so she smiled instead, and went into the audience room.
Queen Breha was her usual resplendent self, in full ceremonial attire, towering hairstyle and elaborate robes and warm smile. And standing beside her, similarly attired, was indeed a small girl, pale of skin and dark of eyes— ah, Lita recognized her. It was Leia, the daughter Breha and Bail had acquired (it wasn’t Lita’s business, but it didn’t seem to her that the girl resembled either of them; she suspected adoption, but such things were not politely discussed and thusfar it was immaterial) when Kes was about two and a half. They had played together as very young children, but Kes probably wouldn’t remember.
Leia was tall for the seven or eight years she must be now, and her hair was dark and glossy and wound into an elaborate structure of braids. Her dress complemented her mother’s; Breha was in two shades of blue, mostly a paler shade with decorations in a darker shade, all accented by gleaming gold embroidery. Leia was in the darker shade, with similar gold decoration. And she was standing next to her mother, looking very serious and yet ethereal, holding a golden object of some kind— oh, a holorecorder, but in a ceremonial container.
She was clearly taking her duty very seriously, chin up and eyes down, impassive and beautiful. Lita’s heart pinched a little; last time she’d seen this girl she’d been a grubby fierce two-year-old that Kes had been instantly protective of and had taken upon himself to escort around the creche as if someone might try to take her away. She’d tolerated him only because he’d brought her food and toys sort of obsessively.
She glanced over at Kes as they approached, and he was staring at Leia as if he’d never seen anything like her. “Do you remember her?” Lita murmured.
“No,” Kes said, wide-eyed.
“That’s Leia,” Lita said. “I think she’d be seven years old now. Don’t forget to take off your hat, Kes.”
Kes fumbled it off hastily, and she brushed her fingers across his forehead, fixing his flattened hair. He followed her and did all the right things, but his eyes never really left Leia for the entire audience.
Afterward, as they sat in the garden waiting for the usual hospitality at midday, Lita asked him all sorts of questions about the audience, but it was clear the only thing he’d really paid attention to was the little girl. “She had gold on her fingertips,” he said, awed.
“Just her fingernails,” Lita said. “It’s paint. What was she doing?”
“She was standing there,” Kes said.
“She was holding the holocorder,” Lita said. “She had an important job. She was providing the electronic witness.”
“Oh,” Kes said. He fidgeted. “Does that mean on Alderaan you get to be a grown-up younger than ten?” He looked vexed. “When I was seven you didn’t let me do anything.”
“I don’t know the customs of Alderaan so well,” Lita said. “You would have to ask her. I’m sure she’ll be at lunch.”
Kes shrank down inside his coat. “Oh,” he said, blushing a little, “I couldn’t talk to her.”
“Why ever not?” Lita asked. “You’re a representative of your whole people, you can talk to anybody.”
He just shook his head, still pulled in on himself. “Not her. She’s too pretty to talk to.”
“This is the most boring conversation ever,” Kes said, spitting out the shells of the seeds he’d been snacking on and tossing them out of the shelter.
“Whatever, man, we’re killing time,” Tuck said. “That’s like, number one thing you gotta do in the army, is kill time.”
“You’re just embarrassed,” Beck said. “You got a real embarrassing one and you don’t wanna tell us.”
Kes rolled his eyes. “It’s not embarrassing,” he said. “It’s just boring.”
“Come on,” Tuck said. “Then tell us. Who was your first crush?”
Kes snorted. “Princess Leia,” he said.
Everyone laughed, and then Beck said, “No no, first crush, not current crush.”
“I know,” Kes said. “Stars, you assholes, my current crush is my goddamn wife, what do you take me for?”
“Who has a crush on their wife?” someone asked, and someone else said, low but audible, “man you ain’t seen his wife, shut your face.”
“Leia’s like,” Beck said, casting about, “she’s like twenty-five, you couldn’t have known her—“
“She’s twenty,” Kes said, “and I grew up with her on Alderaan, so yes, I was ten and she was seven and I had the most ridiculous embarrassing crush on her.”
Everyone stopped talking and stared at him. “Wait, what?” Tuck said.
“I figured you were spacer trash like the rest of us,” Beck said faintly, blinking. “What, are you royalty too?”
“No,” Kes said, “we were refugees, I just happened to get born there. If I were royalty don’t you think I coulda done better for myself than Sergeant?”
Everyone laughed at that, and then Malu, who Kes didn’t know very well, said, “So wait, have you really known the Princess since you were a little kid?”
“Yes,” Kes said, “and I’ll thank you all to show some respect. Why do you think I pulled down that poster that was in the ‘fresher?”
“That was you?” Tuck said, and everyone laughed and made a bunch of raucous noise.
“Yes,” Kes said, “it was me, and I’ll pull down anything else I see like it. You have some respect for that woman, she’s a competent leader and works hard and her family were good people.”
Still, he could tell nobody really believed him until a few days later when the Princess showed up in their encampment. She was with Captain Solo, and clearly they were here for some kind of debrief that Kes wasn’t in on. He wasn’t figuring on making any kind of deal about it, but she was midsentence with Solo about something when her eyes suddenly lit on Kes, and she went dead still for a second.
Solo noticed right away, and swung around to look at Kes. Beck noticed too, and said, “Hey, Princess, do you really know this joker?”
“Kes Dameron,” she said, and her voice was unsteady. She pushed Solo absently out of the way and stepped toward him, raising a shaking hand. “Kes— is it really you?”
“Yes,” he said, and stood up, and she ran to him and crashed right into him, which he hadn’t really expected so he staggered back a little even though she weighed approximately nothing.
“Kes,” she said, and grabbed his face between her hands. “I thought you were dead! I thought everyone was— who else is alive? Who do you know? Who have you found?”
“I wasn’t there,” Kes said. “I was out working.”
“I thought everyone was there,” she said. “Lita?”
He shook his head. “Gone,” he said. “Lita, Fidelia, Yusan, all the elders.”
“No,” she said, face crumpling. Clearly, she’d hoped otherwise. Her eyes went wide again. “Your baby?”
“Was off world,” Kes said, “with his mother and grandfather, Shara’s alive, they’re all right.”
Leia closed her eyes. “I thought everyone was—“ Her eyes flew open again. “Who else? Who else is left?”
Kes shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “It took me two weeks to hear from Shara, I didn’t know if they’d left yet— I was with Norasol.”
“Norasol is alive,” Leia said, expression clearing. “Ohh. Norasol. Good. She knows so much.”
“Not as much as Lita,” Kes said, unable not to let a little bitterness twist through his tone.
“No,” Leia said sorrowfully.
“I assume,” Kes said, “if Breha or Bail had made it out we’d know by now.”
“They’re gone,” she said, blank. He let his breath out, and pulled her into a proper embrace.
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