Mirrorbright (Chapter 2)

Well, now something from the point of view of our dear Princess being a mother.

This little chapter of my ongoing fanfic named "Mirrorbright" was inspired too in a piece of fan-art of Leia with baby Ben.

The light passed through the branches of the tall trees in such a delightful way. The ferns and the rest of the vegetation gave a peaceful impression for anyone who would walk by the forest of Endor. Nobody would have imagined by looking at the scenery how important this forest moon had been for defeating the Empire.

The quietness of the forest was slightly disturbed by the arrival of two figures. A young, beautiful woman dressed in a tan, rudimentary dress and her long brown hair down, holding a little dark-haired boy in her arms. She was walking through the forest in a leisurely manner, as if she was familiar with her surroundings.

She wished she could recognize every single spot from her first visit to Endor. The spot where she first met her little fuzzy friend Wicket, when he found her unconscious after falling from a landspeeder; or the tree she was leaning over when Han was cleaning her arm blaster injury when they witnessed the second Death Star being destroyed and she told him that Luke was her brother. Her baby was too young maybe to keep any recollection of her telling him about these important places for her; but she thought about it anyway as a reminder of all they had gone through to defeat the Empire.

Being in Endor again always made her think with wonder how the fatal blow to the mighty strength to the Empire was in part achieved with the help of a bunch of short furry bipeds. Even within the ranks of the former Rebel Alliance, people would still get astonished by thinking how the Ewoks, some quite primitive creatures, helped to defeat the iron fist of the Emperor! But maybe that was the main reason behind Palpatine's undoing: his overconfidence and his own disregard on how come the feelings could allow creating the most unexpected alliances and bonds between planets.

She was bedazzled watching the little boy she and Han had created. She took a moment to admire and contemplate her little son. His features, a combination of both hers and Han’s. His little hands, grabbing one of his braids. Dressed like he was, with the outfit given by her furry friends, she couldn't help but say when she put on the clothes on him: "Aren't you a little tall for a baby Ewok?” She giggled just thinking of what Han would say of seeing his son dressed as the "little fuzzballs". ("What? Are you dressing him next time as Goldenrod?")

She was wearing the same dress she did back that day at the Ewok village. After arriving to the village with Wicket, some of the female Ewoks had started working on a clothing change so she could be more comfortable. She was happy to notice that it still fitted after having a baby.

Suddenly, she had a funny feeling about the clear they had reached on her wandering. Not exactly a bad feeling, more like the kind of energy she could feel from her twin brother. Following her previous recollection of important sites and events experienced in Endor, she could not help but think of the place where Luke had made a pyre to cremate the remains of their father.

A pang of pain and hatred coursed through her veins when she thought about the father she would refuse to acknowledge. The one person that had caused so much pain and destruction, to her and to the whole galaxy. The one who, through his terrible actions – like freezing Han in carbonite - even risked the little boy she was holding not to be born at all.

She saw the chubby little face of her son and her feelings started to calm down. There was no need at all to dwell on the demons of the past, or even to acknowledge them, if the future was brighter and better and she had now another reason to look forward to.

Little did she know that someone was watching her from a distance. Someone who looked at her and her baby boy with a pang of melancholy. Someone who wished he could have held her in his arms like she was holding Ben. There were a lot of things the Force-ghost of Anakin Skywalker wished he could tell his daughter but, he perceived a lot of negative feelings from the adopted princess of Alderaan towards him. And he could not judge her. The only moment he had hold her when alive was when he and Grand Moff Tarkin made her witness the destruction of Alderaan. How he wished he'd had the opportunity to see her with his own eyes, face to face when he was still alive, like he saw Luke before passing away, moments before the Second Death Star was blown up. But seeing her with Luke would have been disconcerting at first, since he was not aware of having a daughter too. Obi-Wan had been wise to hide her from his Dark self.

Seeing her with her baby took him to a distant place in his memory, when her pregnant mother was standing at her balcony's apartment in Coruscant, dressed in a simple tunic and brushing her lovely hair. Their daughter had inherited some of the delicate features of the former Queen of Naboo, though he could see some of his own in her too. He realised he wished Padme had the chance to hold Leia in her arms too, same as right now their daughter was taking delight on holding her little boy.

Little Ben started laughing. He was giving some steps towards his mother - trying to start walking by himself - but fell on a seated position. Her mood completely improved at the sound of her son's laugh. She wondered what it would have been if her mother had lived to see her giving her first steps. Her name was Padme. She and Luke had found out their mother had been the Queen of Naboo and defended her people bravely in the Battle of Naboo, years before The Clone Wars. Then she had become a Senator and died on their childbirth. She remembered seeing those holovids they had found with certain awe and curiosity. A tiny teenage girl, with similar features as Leia, though not identical: the same brown eyes, the same brown hair though. Those same diluted images she could recall before finding out the truth. Beautiful and kind, but sad. How could she fall in love with a Jedi knight, who had become a monster like Darth Vader?

"Guess we cannot choose who we fall in love with, right?", told herself while picking Ben in her arms. She thought obviously of a certain Corellian smuggler wearing a Stormtrooper uniform, shooting with a blaster from a detention cell. She smiled at the mere thought while bouncing Baby Ben in his arms, causing her son to start laughing again. His big, brown eyes looked at her, his tiny mouth grinning, and she couldn't help but notice that his son had inherited her mother's eyes too.

In one of the images they could found, she was dressed in the same ceremonial robes she remembered from the time she went to Naboo on a mission to save the Alderaanians left after the destruction of her home planet. She recalled stopping by the statue, staring at it and feeling like there was some sort of connection between her and the former Queen, but back then she was not fully aware of the reason.

She found another holovid from a ceremony where the former Queen had awarded and recognized the brave Gungan warriors who had helped to defend Naboo from the Trade Federation and their battle droids. She could see the moment where Queen Amidala, dressed in pure white, had awarded Boss Nass. She saw the rest of the people near her mother, some other Naboo dignitaries, including the recently elected Chancellor Palpatine - the one who would become the evil Emperor - and some Jedi knights. The ceremony had an eerie similarity to the one several years later herself would preside in the Massassi Temple to award the heroes of the Battle of Yavin - her twin brother, her now-husband and their Wookie loyal friend. At one point in the holovid, when the Gungan leader lifted the Globe of Peace received from the Queen, she could see the ruler of Naboo looking aside and smiling to a young boy, wearing Jedi padawan clothes. She recalled feeling something strange when she saw the boy, smiling back to the Queen with bright blue eyes and a certain smirk she could call identical to Luke's.

She shuddered for a bit. She couldn’t help but remember late Moff Panaka, who appeared in the same holovid and that without a doubt, met the late Queen and Senator. Now his attitude towards her before dying a little bit after meeting her made sense. She couldn’t help but wonder what he would have done if he had mentioned his suspicions to the Emperor.

Leia decided it was time to go back to the Ewok village. The daylight was slowly disappearing and by the time she could hear the normal sounds of the village, the darkness had appeared over the forest. The quietness of the surroundings of the Ewok village took her back to that fateful night, when she had found out Luke was her brother and Vader her father. The happiness of finding out one of her best friends was her twin brother was eclipsed by the fact that one of the monsters she had fought - and suffered at the hands of - was her real father. That was one example of the mixed feelings she had from Endor.

Baby Ben was yawning but refused to fall asleep. With his dark locks coming out of the headcap he was wearing, he looked like a baby Ewok way too cute to be a real one. She started singing an old lullaby her adoptive mother used to sing to her when she was little:

"Mirrorbright..."

She recalled the sweet voice of her adoptive mother. In some way she felt like she was betraying her memory by thinking of her real mother, indulging in any piece of memory she could find around about her.