Chapter Text
Argenta Academy and its list of ancient founders’ names were carved in elegant aurebesh into costly silver stone, forming an arch over the long walkway that stretched into the school. Jyn’s practiced eye searched for access and exit points. There were none. The academy was a fortress.
Given what she dimly knew about its students, this was hardly surprising; Argenta was the exclusive school for the daughters of the Empire’s elites. Duchesses and princesses and moffs’ daughters. It was a place to polish wealthy girls into well-trained wives for Imperial admirals and governors.
Jyn’s throat felt itchy in the crisp, high collared frock that Krennic had purchased for her. It was the only option he’d provided, after he’d plucked her and her father from their farm. She tugged at the stiff lace and rubbed her neck. This couldn’t be farther from Lah’mu.
The heavy doors closed behind them. They may as well have been on a star destroyer, so thick was the shielding. To keep people out, or the women in? Jyn wondered. She sniffed. The air smelled cloyingly sweet, like flowers.
In the foyer, Jyn’s eyes flicked over the gaunt, thin-lipped headmistress, her droid, and a dark-eyed girl of extraordinary beauty clad in stiff blue dress.
“Welcome,” the headmistress said to Krennic, ignoring Jyn entirely. “Director Krennic. We are pleased to receive your…ward into our institution.”
Jyn’s hackles rose, but she kept her silence. This was not the place to make a scene. “My fiancée, not my ward,” Krennic corrected her easily. “In due course. Once she’s been trained to behave in polite society.”
“What has been the manner of her education up until now, milord?” The headmistress inquired.
Krennic made a sound of amusement. “Education! Well, the girl can read and speak Basic, albeit half her vocabulary seems to be profanity. You see, her father’s let her run feral in the Outer Rim. When I found her, she was literally squatting in a hole in the ground, covered in mud.”
The headmistress’s face had horror written underneath her politely blank expression, but the girl standing next to her hid a faint grin.
Krennic continued. “See if you can’t sharpen that Coruscanti accent of hers - she was raised on Coruscant as a youngling, but after fifteen years in the rim, it rather grates on the ears now. Like knives on durasteel.”
“Has she any of the court languages? Old Coruscanti, High Galactic, Alderaa?” The dark-eyed girl stirred at the headmistress’s mention of Alderaa.
“E chu ta,” Jyn said, with a wide, plastic smile.
The headmistress stiffened, and Krennic’s mouth twitched, though Jyn couldn’t quite place his reaction.
“Young ladies do not speak Huttese at Argenta Academy,” the headmistress spoke to Jyn directly at last.
“You heard what he said. I’m hardly a lady,” Jyn said, still showing her teeth.
“Yes, more of a tauntaun on glitterstim," Krennic mused aloud. "That will change,” he promised. Jyn glared at him, but he addressed himself only to the headmistress.
“As you can see, madame, my dear fiancée is urgently in need of your…exacting standards. She is destined for rather elevated circles as my future wife. I have made sincere promises to her father, who is occupied with important business for the Emperor, that I will correct her behavior and mold her into the respectable consort she was born to be. Thus I leave her in your capable hands, and expect regular reports as to her progress.”
The headmistress gave a curt nod, and gestured to the dark-eyed girl. "Take Miss Erso to her chamber. You will be responsible for her and any infractions she commits."
The girl gave Jyn an appraising look, and arched an eyebrow as if to say, we’ll see what you’re capable of.
“Don’t disappoint me, or your father, Jyn,” Krennic ordered, his voice low and even. “Be a good girl, for once.”
Jyn’s cheeks burned. She knew he was waiting for her usual response: a glare, a creative obscenity, a wad of spit on his spotless white uniform. But instead, she stalked through the foyer and into the halls of the academy, the dark-eyed girl following close behind.
“Will wonders never cease,” she heard him drawl in the distance. “Why, she’s learning already.”
***
The dark-eyed girl smoothly overtook her, her stride surprisingly long for being so petite.
“You can’t let them get to you,” she said to Jyn, guiding them through labyrinthine hallways of elegant tan-and-white stone. “Especially the men,” she added. “Fortunately–there aren’t any of those here.”
Jyn’s escort paused in front of a nondescript door. At her nod, Jyn touched her fingers to the door and it opened, revealing a small chamber. It was equipped with a single plush bed, a heavy wood desk and chair, and a small ‘fresher. There was a small window set over the bed that overlooked the half-wild landscape of Centax-2.
She glanced over the room, searching for surveillance devices and access points. Saw Gerrera had seen to it that Jyn had a thorough education in basic security.
“Say what you will about Madame Massi,” the girl commented, “but she’s old-fashioned. Guards the virtue of her girls scrupulously. We have privacy in our own quarters, at least. You can speak freely if the door is closed, unless you are being monitored for a specific reason–but you’ll have to be careful elsewhere.”
Jyn finished her sweep and was drawn irresistibly to the small window. She climbed onto the bed onto her knees and yanked the window open, inhaling the rich scent of the outside world. The air smelled alive. After months trapped in a windowless cell on Krennic’s destroyer, Jyn closed her eyes and savored the taste of fresh air, even if it was different from Lah’mu: a few shades sweeter and warmer.
“You like being outside, then.”
Jyn looked over her shoulder. “Can we go outside?” she asked, mind turning over the possibilities.
“Sometimes. We’re always supervised.” The girl leaned against the back of the door. “There are droid guards on random patrol paths throughout the exterior grounds, outside of the garden terraces. The entire school and a few hundred hectares of the surrounding area are under a shield dome, practically military grade. Very hard to get in or out.”
Jyn heard the suggestion in her words. “You–do you know how to get out?”
The girl smiled prettily. “Whyever would I want to get out?”
Jyn narrowed her eyes. She had to be careful. One wrong word to the wrong person, and Krennic would have her back in her cell–or worse, in the marriage bed.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Leia. Leia Organa.”