Written for LJ prompt: harbinger | Mon Mothma.
She thought this had been settled. Long ago, when Bail came to her, when the treaty had finally been signed. Leia, only ten, could not have known what was happening, she thought, and they had agreed. Leave her out of it.
Two years passed and a small datapad appeared at her desk, a small insignia of red carefully constructed in the center. The small hand it had arrived by returned to the girl's side, nearly disappearing into a sleeve of white.
"For your… group. I couldn't find Papa."
Breha grew ill. A wasting sickness, they said, though rumors of a secret school and assassination at the Imperial Center snaked quietly through Aldera and found their way to Hanna.
Bail was withdrawn for a time afterwards. He no longer knew what to do with her.
"You need some help. A protégée, if you like."
"No, you need a partner on Aldera again. Don't confuse our agendas. This was settled."
"She's not… him. She knows anyway."
Still she relented, though it had been settled. Leia was fifteen, and good at filing. Good at deflecting suspicious questions. People liked her instinctively. She had inherited her gift for words and persuasion, his charisma. Bail and Breha had raised her to show empathy like any good politician, but what's more, to feel it. She became a rallying point, and at eighteen became a senator. For over a year, Leia recruited and shook hands and made secret speeches in secret bunkers, all under her watchful eye.
Still, she was never supposed to be on the front lines. Not like them. This was settled.
"I can't leave Alderaan, I'm being watched," said Bail over the holo, his proud daughter standing at his side. "Leia can more than handle the Tantive."
"I have no doubt of that," said Mon, "but it's not her place."
"We don't have time to argue this," said Leia impatiently. "Our agent on the Death Star will be ready in 0300 hours. I'll report back to you both once I've contacted General Kenobi."
Mon watched in silence as she strode out of the holo.
"I'll make contact again after my meeting," said Bail.
A moment passed before he spoke again.
"It was a mistake. She's old before her time now."
"So were they," was the quiet response. "Such is the curse of war on the young."