It was startlingly straightforward to escape Noreino House, even in broad daylight – but as with that snap decision to inspect the Izadash mine several weeks prior, Lux expected it was only because he had the element of surprise. The next time he tried playing hooky, the probe droids that had hastened after him wouldn't be foiled by jamming signals addling their sensors. The handful of sentient tails that were sent as an extra precaution wouldn't follow the first street boy Lux could find that matched his height and build walking toward the gambling dens in Lux's fine cloak and tunic.

Up until a few days ago, he'd lapped up his father's complaints about security risks, and hadn't left the palace unaccompanied. He hadn't known his father's game, before – hadn't even thought to expect a game from his own family. He knew better now, and even if the scope of Zakhan Noreino's ruthlessness had opened a gaping wound in him, he was happy to be out and moving. The secondary project he'd snapped up for his stay at the villa – getting to the bottom of an apparent conspiracy with Houses Taevarion and Bonaga – had gone nowhere, and it was freeing to finally be back to gathering intelligence and making contact with informants...

Especially when the report he'd promised his father about the situation in the border villages was gathering dust on his desk.

Lux shook the thought away as he scampered into the narrow townhouse that was today's rendezvous. Then, passing the ratty spare cloak he'd been wearing over the plainest shirt and pants he owned to the protocol droid butler that had admitted him, he turned to greet his host: Major General Akani Acesto.

Akani flashed him a cool smile, and then, on unspoken agreement, they pulled heavy-duty datapads from their pockets to scan each other and the charming sitting room they stood in for cams and bugs. He doubted she'd betray him, and he hoped she felt the same about him, but it paid to be careful. Akani had the same policy, intensified by the risks she took on the daily as an Imperial officer. Both of those were reasons why he'd kept in contact with her after the fall of the old Rebellion against the Separatists.

"It's always good to look upon your face with my own eyes instead of reading your words on a screen, Lux, so don't misinterpret me," she said, shaking the few strands of caf-brown hair – the same shade as his own – that had escaped her tidy bun out of her eyes. "But when you want to meet in person, it usually means something is wrong."

"Forgive the sentiment, but with everything that's been going on, I wanted to see a friendly face." That, and Lux couldn't stand being in his rooms a minute longer than he had to with Alynna staying there, but that wasn't something he'd tell Aunty Akani, as some of his compatriots had called her. They'd never been all that close.

Lux and Alynna still hadn't come up with a more permanent living situation for her than returning her to the slave quarters, but it was starting to feel impossible to work with her near and preserve his façade. There was a constant itch in him to ask her questions, hear her opinions, or reach out for her hand in the middle of a particularly dense page of Kyzeron legislation – just to know she was there.

He hadn't realized how much he'd come to rely on her presence until he'd started forcing himself to go without it. But that was always the way of things, and he couldn't focus on how he was going to free her right now. Getting the paperwork that kept Alynna an indentured worker and property of the Crown out of his father's office would take a lot of careful planning – not to mention how long it would take to create the fakes to replace them.

Forgery was far outside his realm of expertise, and he wouldn't have the time to experiment before the gala. He was sleeping too little as it was already.

Focus on the present, Alynna's voice whispered in the back of his mind. It was one of the first things she'd taught him, and it had never really left him. Lux stifled a sigh. He could put as much physical distance between them as he wished, but how could he truly detach himself when she'd already taken root in his head?

You'll find out by doing, not by wondering, you melodramatic fool, Lux chided himself. "That was some quick thinking, disguising the Elites' unusual deployment as an administrative issue," he said. "Were I in your place, I doubt I could've faced the Emperor's right-hand man and gotten away with it."

Akani smiled wolfishly. "But it was an administrative issue – just one we happened to have orchestrated ourselves. That's how you get the top dogs of the Imperial hierarchy, with lies that are true from a certain point of view. The Elite storm troopers can't sense the difference in your thoughts or your pulse or your breathing, and Lord Vader can't either."

"Vader can sense lies?" Lux squawked. "Is he a Jedi?"

"No. The Jedi were supposed to be kind, moral. Lord Vader is... something else." She shook a finger at him. "But a lot of spies and informants would pay dearly for that kind of information, boy, so you had best be careful who you let it slip to."

Lest they trace it back to me, she didn't add, but Lux heard it anyway. The profession they both moonlighted in could be a dangerous one. Even now Lux didn't trust Akani completely, and she'd been a strong – if silent – ally to the uprising several years before, forging leases with people that didn't exist so Lux and his allies could use the warehouses and condominiums she owned in Iziz as bases.

"The discretion of my contacts in the Rebellion is assured. They'll appreciate any information about Vader I can get, but it won't be traced back to either of us."

Akani nodded, relaxing a fraction. Even with her stocky build muscled from years serving in Onderon's military before joining up with the Empire, Lux had always thought there was something birdlike about her – the calculated way she tilted her head, eyes sharp, when she studied something, for one. She was looking at him that way now, and he wasn't sure what it was she'd seen.

"Something on your mind?" he asked, a little more sharply than he meant to.

"Why haven't you gone to them already, boy?"

"What?"

"The Rebellion. Preach all you like about making the information you slice for available to anyone who wants it – Rebellion, Imperial, or other – but I know your heart. You're a fighter, Lux. They could use someone with your talents – your drive."

"They're trying to restore the Republic," Lux said, not bothering to hide his disdain. "The Republic Senate was sluggish, biased, and unwilling to provide aid of any sovereign world outside its protectorate without a price – and usually that price was the planet's independence."

"They're trying to restore a Republic. A sluggish, biased Senate squabbling around an issue is better than a tyrant's direct orders, and you know that. Dozens of the old Separatist worlds have already joined up for that very reason." Akani's expression grew softer then, almost sympathetic. "You could go to them, help them in exchange for their help with Onderon. Not everyone can wield a laser sword and fight on the front lines, but that doesn't make you powerless."

"I'm doing this to protect Onderon," Lux insisted, frustration he didn't care to track to its source leeching into his voice. "You've got an in with the garrison. You've seen how deeply they've hooked their fangs into the nobility! Getting the Crown's approval is at best a formality, now; everything runs through Kyzeron, greased with dirty money and slave labor. The poison is only going to spread further from there.

"The Rebellion won't prioritize us. Why would they?" Lux laughed darkly. "A few more decades of corruption, and the task of cutting it out will become so monumental not even people who grew up on Onderon will know how to excise it. The time to make a real difference was during the uprising, before the Separatists had taken root, but I went before the Jedi Council myself and had them refuse me."

Akani's hawk stare intensified, and Lux could guess its meaning well enough. She thought his excuses were weak, and she didn't believe them.

Lux sighed. He wasn't going to spend all his energy arguing about this when time was so precious. "I won't turn a blind eye to others' suffering, but there's only so much I can do about it right now. We have enough trouble keeping the Elites away from the people in the cities and the border towns, and that's a small comfort with the Lesser and Great Houses bearing down on them."

Akani blinked at him slowly, assessing him for a long moment before she finally offered him a nod. She didn't want to continue arguing, either. "We'll have to change tactics once the lockdown ends and the bulk of them leave the cities again," she said. "Vader himself commented that stretching the Elites thin to cover a wider area looked like mismanagement of valuable Imperial resources, and I have reason to believe he's turned one of my own men into a mole. If they demote me or send someone else to do my job, the outer villages will have no protection."

"What about small squads isolated from one another instead of wide sweeps? It's enough of a change to look significant, but the result is the same if we keep their patrols isolated from one another and the rest of the population."

"Exactly what I was thinking. You know, for a politician, you've got a decent mind for tactical analysis."

"My mother taught me how to look at a big picture and break it down into smaller components. It's what made her so successful a Senator, and it's proven just as useful in strategy as it is with dense legal documents."

Akani hummed and activated the holoproj built into a low table in the center of the sitting room. Not that it helped you figure out what your father was planning, a snide voice cut in as she keyed up a topographical map of the Kyzeron valley, filling the lapse in conversation.

Lux shrugged it off as best he could. He'd gotten too mired in sentiment to brace for a double-cross, but he wasn't beaten. Not yet. He still had a full year to find a way to free Alynna and send her far away from Onderon, shearing the claws off his father's demand he marry and making it harmless enough to disregard entirely.

Akani was both right and wrong in disbelieving him. Lux had a fighting spirit that nearly got the better of him sometimes, but he'd learned from loss upon loss that slow and steady was the safe way to change things. His father wouldn't be leading House Noreino forever. When the day came for Zakhan Noreino to step down, the real work could begin.

Lux just had to make sure he stayed in one piece long enough to see it done.

Dark circles beneath the eyes notwithstanding, the man looking back at him through the mirror really was a charming fellow. Lux could chalk most of it up to a fresh trim that better suited his unstyled hair and clothes so luxurious even he felt out of place wearing them, but still, it felt like an accomplishment.

Lux gave the delicately embroidered midnight blue cape he was evaluating an experimental swish, watching the long train accented with golden lace flutter around his feet with a critical eye. He'd inherited it from his mother's wardrobe, but he didn't think he'd ever actually seen her wear it.

It was slit nearly to the shoulders to give him freedom of movement and cut to leave most of the front of his body unobstructed, which was convenient, and if he added a touch of color to his cheeks and lips, the deep blue would create a striking contrast with his pale skin instead of making him look washed-out. But he doubted he could wear anything dressy beneath it without looking like a fop, and if he took it off to dance – because he absolutely could not dance in a train like that – he'd look far too plain for the Heir-Designate to a Great House.

No, it wasn't the right choice.

"I wouldn't have expected dark colors to be a good fit for you."

Lux whirled at the sound of Alynna's voice, but he couldn't hide a grin as the bottom of the cape was swept up in a graceful flurry of cloth. Maybe there would be some kind of afterparty worth attending following the gala, and he could scurry back upstairs from the Great Hall to change...

Lux held in a sigh. He didn't like what he was being sent to the gala to do, and he didn't like that the event as a whole would be little more than a celebration of his father's power, but it was startlingly easy to forget all that. It had been far too long since he'd gone to a proper party.

"I... uh..." he said eloquently.

Alynna glanced from the pile of discarded clothing to the mirrored doors of the cabinets lining one side of the room. "Did I intrude on a game of dress-up?"

Flushing, Lux cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm deciding on an outfit for the gala tomorrow. Father told me to wear something that would give the right impression, but didn't give me specific instructions about color or cut."

Of course, according to his father, the right impression was a marriageable one, but Lux wasn't about to tell Alynna he'd said so.

"Isn't it a little last minute to be choosing that?" she asked, frowning. "My... friends always had everything down to the underwear decided a week before."

"Your friends? You were never one for parties yourself?"

Alynna shook her head. "I only ever went to work functions." Grimacing, she added, "Or if I was invited by somebody important, and I really couldn't get out of it."

"Really? You've never struck me as antisocial," Lux said with a teasing smile, tracing a finger over the embroidery on the cape's supple fanned collar.

"I'm not! I just never knew what to say or do beyond get tipsy, scarf down some pastries, and try to remember not to wipe my fingers on my clothes."

A voice warned him to exile Alynna from the room or at least speak to her coolly, to nip the easy affection between them in the bud when it was dangerously close to flowering, but Lux couldn't help himself; he laughed brightly. The image of Alynna swaying at the edge of a dance floor, a cocktail in hand and icing sugar powdering her lips, was impossible to purge.

Those delectably full lips... It was only too easy to imagine her swiping the excess away with her tongue and flashing him a slow, seductive smile, as warm and relaxed as she'd been over that bottle of Chandrilan rum.

"Well, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and you've got all kinds of strengths outside ballrooms," Lux said blandly as he beat a hasty retreat to the changing screen in one corner of the walk-in closet. He was a hopelessly lost cause.

"That's true." From the other side of the screen, Lux heard Alynna shift on her feet absently before padding over to the low ottoman on the other side of the room. The huff of air leaving the cushion as she sat down and made herself comfortable followed soon after, and Lux cursed under his breath.

She'd never seemed all that interested in clothing beyond quick checks to make sure it was practical enough for everyday use; was it too much to hope she'd simply get bored and leave? Lux was in serious need of time alone to scrape his nerves into something that vaguely resembled composure.

"This won't be all that interesting to sit in on," he warned her as he shucked his pants and cape and slipped on the next outfit up for consideration. "I've got almost half my formal wear left to try on."

"I don't really have anything better to do. I finished updating the security on your computer terminal yesterday."

Lux stuck his head around the screen, needing to see her face. "You did? Even I'd forgotten about that. I've been so busy these last few days..."

Alynna cleared her throat as if uncomfortable, but her gaze was piercing. "There's only so much HoloNet I can take before I get bored."

The intensity of that stare was whole questions and answers in and of itself, and Lux was keenly aware of that. She was giving him the chance to fess up to something. But what? Was she upset he'd been keeping his distance?

She'd been taking a lot of walks around Noreino House lately. Had she seen him sneak out of the palace? Had she followed him? A chill ran down Lux's spine. No, she couldn't have; her tracker was still active. But then again, Lux hadn't reset its range back to what it had been before their stay at the villa, and if his father intended for the gala to be Lux's first of many social outings, maybe he hadn't done it, either. There would be places Lux would have to go without her.

And if anyone could figure out a way past the guards without identification or a pass, it was Alynna.

"Well then I, uh, I thank you for your help. I appreciate it," Lux stammered, covering his unease as best he could. Even if she had seen him leave, he hadn't said the meetings that would occupy him this morning were in the palace, after all.

Lux did up the last of the pearlescent buttons that would gather the gauzy, billowing white sleeves of his shirt into tidy cuffs and stepped around the changing screen to check his reflection. Forced tranquility was clearly the calmest he was going to get, so there was no point anymore in hiding.

Alynna rose to her feet, her eyes wide. "You look..."

Lux spun in front of the mirror, and his floor-length skirt spun with him, its many velvet layers glinting deep turquoise and emerald green as they slipped and curled around his legs. It really was a beautiful piece; it was a shame he'd never had an excuse to wear it since purchasing it some years before. "What say you? I think it compliments my eyes, and it's definitely dressy enough for a gala."

Alynna hummed thoughtfully. After that first long stare, it seemed she was trying to avoid looking directly at him. "Maybe, but it doesn't have much shape to it. You look like you're drowning in it."

"Really? It's not so full it would get stuck under my dancing partners' shoes, is it?" Really, Lux thought it struck a perfect balance. The color brought out his eyes, and it flowed out from the tight fit of the shirt like liquid from a champagne flute – voluminous, but not tight enough to be constricting. And there was power to the way it moved around him.

"You'd do better with a tighter cut, I think – something that accentuates your hips." Alynna looked him up and down before averting her eyes again, and if it wasn't his imagination, her lekku had colored a touch. "Your hips are, uh... nice."

Flushing with pride, Lux traced his fingers over the cool surface of one of the skirt's uppermost panels. "I can't stand tight skirts; my stride is so long I always feel like I'm one wrong step away from ripping a seam. Forget dancing in them." He tried to imagine what the piece would look like if it fell above the knees. "Short skirts neither. I don't like looking at myself in a mirror and feeling like I'm all legs."

"Then... what about a shorter tunic fitted at the waist with pants beneath?" She walked over and pressed an experimental hand to his hip, flattening the skirt into place to show him what she meant. "Something you can move in."

Lux sucked in a breath, and Alynna's hand snapped back as though touching him had scorched her. Swallowing thickly, Lux hurried back behind the screen to trade the skirt for a pair of charcoal dress pants and layer a tight-fitting, sleeveless grey tunic in the traditional style of the nobility over his shirt. It was tight in the body but flared a little just below the hips, and two slits that went nearly up to his waist allowed for easy movement. Lux figured Alynna would approve.

But as he was slipping on a pair of matching grey boots, the insoles worn and comfortable, Lux sensed the outfit was missing something. And, in a delicious flash of insight, he realized he knew exactly what it was.

He'd just have to make sure his father didn't see him until it was too late to send him back to his rooms to change.

"Alynna, shut your eyes."

"What?" He could almost see the confused furrow of her brow.

"I need something else to complete the outfit. I'd like your opinion on it, but not before I've put everything together."

"All right. I won't look." She gave a soft, indulgent laugh. Lux felt like such a fool for leaning forward, like that sound was something that could bluster over him like a mountain breeze – a rare hint of relief in the heat of this gods-forsaken city. He could just picture the indulgent smile on her face as she closed her eyes and waited.

He took a deep breath and crossed the room to one floor-to-ceiling cabinet in particular. He had to free Alynna, and soon. There was bound to be trouble if he didn't. He'd come too close that night in the jungle. If he tripped up again and said all the wrong things – and, gods forbid, if she said them back – then it would be impossible to let her go. He'd get started as soon as the gala was past.

He found the short cape and elaborate collar he was searching for by feel. For all the fine silks and fine linens in his wardrobe to muddle his memory, this was one piece he could never forget, and he smiled as he pulled it over his head and tied the two ribbons under his arms that would hold it in place on his shoulders.

It had been his mother's favorite. The collar and cape had been from King Dendup, a gift to commemorate a distinguished first year of service to Onderon in the Republic Senate. That was a high honor in and of itself, but even more so was the style in which it was wrought: it was reminiscent of the traditional costume of a ruling monarch.

Nothing could have been a greater statement of the king's confidence in her, and she'd worn it with the utmost pride. In fact, Lux had scarcely ever seen her leave their apartment for the Senate without it shrouding her shoulders. Wearing it now kindled a curious feeling in his gut – nostalgic and a little conflicted, certainly, but to his surprise, not unpleasant or aggrieved. Pride. Lux ginned.

Alynna inhaled deeply as he passed her by on his way to the mirror. "What's that scent?" she murmured, her eyes still shut. "It's not your usual one."

Lux lifted a corner of the fabric to his face and smiled. It was so faint now he'd missed it at first, but Alynna's Togruta senses were a lot more perceptive than his. "It was my mother's perfume. And you can open your eyes, now."

Alynna obliged him. She kept herself still for a long moment, studying him, before a slow, blinding grin split her beautiful face. "It's perfect," she said, and it was.

The cape was a beautiful dusky mauve that matched the embroidered piping running in lines down his tunic, and the metal accents still had the same blueish tint even after three years without polishing. Onderonian iron – the lifeblood of this planet, running in great veins and arteries through the earth – never rusted.

Grey and mauve, shot through with silver. House Bonteri colors – the kind of display his father would resent entirely when he spotted it. Lux looked like a prince.

"Lux, this is..." Alynna started to reach for him, then seemed to think better of it. "I mean, you've got lots of nice clothes, but the way you wear these ones..."

Forgetting he was supposed to seem cool, to appear unattached, forgetting all of it, Lux grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "You'll come to the gala, won't you?"

"I told you how I am at parties – and I doubt anybody would want me there, beyond the types with wandering hands."

It was a test, but Lux knew how to pass it. "I'll want you there. Please, let me share the night with you. Once the thrill of the fine clothing and finer wine wears off, I know I'll be miserable." He took a breath. "This is the last favor I'll ever ask of you."

She raised a brow at him. "You think you can keep a promise like that?"

Lux couldn't answer that. His plans were still too fragile, too new. He couldn't be sure he'd be able to free her and get her away without his father finding out – let alone do it all quickly. She smiled at him anyway, as if she somehow understood, twining her fingers through his and pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

For a long time, they said nothing – just stood gazing at the ethereal prince of silk and silver in the mirror before them, and the warrior he loved standing beside.

Things are still a little tense between Lux and Ahsoka, but for the time being, Lux's walls are down and Ahsoka is feeling receptive. But how much longer can they walk this razor's edge between lies and truth to keep their secrets safe? With so many other political players due to join the scene in less than a day, will the gala blow things out of proportion between them? Will Lux learn the truth about his father's plans before it's too late to counter them? And how does Ahsoka fit into them, really? Only time will tell...

YALL THAT FIRST BAD BATCH EPISODE, I MEAN WHAT?? I am so HYPED FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON!!! Like seriously, I have been so blessed with content these last two weeks. And I've been suitably productive to make up for my absence!

I could kick myself though, because I generally review each Wednesday's chapter the day of, and I've been so involved in writing tHE gALa that I forgot which one was up for today until just a few hours ago. I meant to post some art of Lux's outfits with today's chapter, but the sketches aren't done. I guess I'll have to do an art feature sometime in the future with everything I meant to include thrown in there, hehehe... he...  -__-''

This chapter was also my way of poking a little fun at the fandom's early criticisms of Lux, some of which called him too feminine or awkward to be a man worthy of Ahsoka. (The comparisons with a young Justin Bieber in particular always made me snicker.) Lux has always struck me as someone who, as of his first conversations with Ahsoka that opened him to the mindset of someone on the other side of the war and made him question what's told to him, marches to the beat of his own drum. He has his own standards of right and wrong, and doesn't mind a ton if he seems unconventional or even radical to other people if he's doing what he feels is right and believes in. In my mind he applies that to his gender expression as well, and Ahsoka is definitely here for someone who has that kind of confidence in himself ;)

I'd also like to ask you guys what you think of something. Next fall I'll be doing a full course load of classes at university level. I've never had to contend with something that heavy, let alone NOT in my mother tongue – and I know it'll be even worse now that I'm coming at it after a gap year. My reflexes will be slow, and I'll need all the time I can get to adjust. 

But before I cause a panic, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop posting! Just in case there's trouble (and there may be, since my chapters have gotten progressively longer to the point where I have trouble finishing one a week, let alone two if I'm trying to get a bit ahead) I'm hoping to build up a stash of enough chapters to cover the whole semester. I can do it one of two ways, and I'd like to hear what you guys would prefer:

OPTION 1: I limit my updates to once every two weeks instead of once every week (probably also providing sneak peeks to the next chapter at the end of every author's note to make up for the wait), and keep posting consistently.

OPTION 2: I go on a three-month hiatus (I have three chapters I can still post before leaving, which gets us to the end of this month) but post weekly once I'm back at school, skipping the odd week as needed.

Next chapter, we'll get back to Vader on the Death Star, and learn a bit more about the finer workings of the highest-ranking circles in the Rebellion. Talk to you guys then!