For day 1 of @bahrynfestival I'm sharing an idea for a fic that I want to write someday, and fulfills the prompt of "In another life".
So here it goes. Imagine this:
Everything happens pretty much the same except for a small, but very important detail. What if Zeb was not only a captain of the Honor Guard, but also of the Royal Family of Lasan. Being a distant relative of the queen (like third cousin or something), he was so down in the line of succession, that in his youth, he never imagined he could sit on the throne. Neither did he have the desire to do so. The only way he could do that, however, was if his entire family die… and then the Siege of Lasan happened.
He still escaped his home planet and eventually joined the Ghost Crew. He never said a word about his royal status. But the day the crew rescued Chava and Gron, he's forced to face the fact that he's the sovereign of his people when Chava started babbling about the prophecy of "The king, the warrior, and the fool". He managed to keep the fact hidden by admitting that he had been an Honor Guard, but taking advantage of his unwanted position, he forbade Chava and Gron to tell the others anything else. Chava was not happy about it but recognized he wasn't ready for taking the responsibility as king, so she kept her mouth shut, for a while. Besides, the prophecy came true, Lira San was found.
Every time she brought the subject up in the later years, Zeb always had the excuse of being fighting the Empire; that it was his way to serve and protect his people. Not entirely untrue, but once the war is over, it wasn't a good excuse anymore.
You might be wondering where was Kallus in all of this, well, he still was a bastard ISB agent: he and Zeb still got stranded on Bahryn; he still became Fulcrum, and eventually defected from the Empire. And of course, they both were stupidly in love with each other, pining each other endlessly, making everyone around them wonder when they'd kiss already. It happened on Endor, during the celebrations after the second Death Star blew up.
The first months after that were a true honeymoon, until Zeb started to be a ball of constant stress, and Kallus asked him what was going on. It took some serious encouragement, but Zeb finally confesses that the group of Lasan survivors along with some Lira San natives wanted to reclaim Lasan.
At first, Kallus think Zeb is upset because they'll be apart for a while, which he'd understand, but when Zeb he'd have to stay in Lasan because he's their king...
"Excuse me, you're their what?!"
Zeb asks Kallus to go with him, because he can't do it alone, he doesn't know how to rule, he doesn't want to. Kallus refuses at first. He's terrified of offending other survivors with his presence. It was already hard to accept Zeb's forgiveness, but others wouldn't be so gracious. But in the end (and with the help of Chava, using the prophecy as an argument) Kallus goes with Zeb.
A few Lasats weren't too happy about his presence, but for the most part, they saw Kallus' help to restore Lasan as his atonement for his participation in the siege. He was giving them back part of what he took away from them.
During all this, Chava had a side scheming going on. She never told Zeb and Kallus that there was a second part to the prophecy, which said that the King and Warrior would lead their people to a golden age. As part of their coronation rituals for Zeb, whoever was destined to become the consort to the sovereign would find a branch of a specific, very special tree that later would become the royal scepter. She left those finer details out of the explanation when she asked Kallus to help her find a branch for Zeb.
Zeb was surprised and flustered when he saw Kallus coming with the branch in hand knowing its significance, especially because there a bunch of people around who also knew.
"You didn't tell him, did ya?" he said to Chava, who had the smugest grin.
"Tell me what?" Kallus said, scared that he did something awful.
Zeb explained and ended up asking him to mate with him, awkwardly because it's in front of everyone.
So that's how Alexsandr Kallus became Prince Consort to King Garazeb Orrelios of Lasan. And both restored and led Lasan to a golden age, just like the prophecy said.
