Warning Last Jedi spoilers: Leia's personal reflections on the force and her life since Return of the Jedi.
Leia had to get use to the idea of having a brother and now the new bond they shared as twins within the force.
The fight to destroy the second Death Star was just completed and they sat resting on the forest moon. Not having grown up with Luke had left Leia unaccustomed to a bond as deep as the one they now shared.
Leia was shocked by the relief she felt after the explosion above Endor. A sadness that was not her own was almost overwhelming. Luke had lost something that he had been searching for a very long time. Part of his family.
There was a power between them, as twins and therefore a deeper connection within the force. Leia had heard of twins sharing feelings and sensitivities but she never thought that she would suddenly become exposed to this level of feeling and understanding.
Luke and Leia were connected at birth and that feeling never left them, but it lay dormant until they met on the Death Star all those years ago. Leia had just never been able to define the strange feelings she had all her young life. Then suddenly on Endor, it all made sense in a strange sort of way.
Han thought that he was in competition with Luke for her love but it was never like that between them.
Over the years Leia had come to understand more about Darth Vader...Anakin Skywalker through Luke. Even after years she had difficulty considering him father. No; Bail Organa was her father.
Anakin Skywalker was supposed to bring balance to the force. It was never achieved in Vader's actions, other than fathering Luke and Leia. That was how Skywalker managed the balance. Twins are representative of a balance of sorts. Yet the peace Leia had fought for didn't last long enough. Here they were again fighting a totalitarian regime, just as malicious and evil as Palpatine's Empire.
As the years went by Leia spent as much time as possible with Luke, listening to him speak and trying to teach her about the force and how she could harness it for herself. However, Leia held a healthy amount of fear at the prospect of such power in a politicians hands. Palpatine had been skilled in both and able to hide in plain sight.
What if the force made her into what she feared most? No; Leia would leave the force to Luke and concentrate on her personal leadership strengths.
Leia, Han, Luke, Lando and Chewie had been graced with a few years of peace and love. Ben was one result of that time of relative peace and love. Yet as her son grew, Leia's dread of him becoming another Vader grew along with him.
Luke would train the new Jedi order and her brother would look after Ben.
Han could not handle the loss. Leia wept inside, as she had for so many others in her past. To Han...Ben was more. Han had not had a family, not even like the adopted ones that Luke and Leia has grown up in. Ben was Han's family. Chewie, Lando, Luke and Leia were all he had and then along came their son. Han's world changed.
Leia had laughed at how fitting it was that Han found Rey, Finn and his beloved Falcon. The two of them were duplicates of them all those years ago. Thrust into an adventure that they were ill equipped to handle, yet did.
Youth and indestructibility went hand in hand with sheer luck, or maybe it was more. The force was indeed with them all on that first meeting on the Death Star.
Leia had always regretted not getting to really meet Obi Wan Kenobi. She had heard that he came to the palace once when she was a young girl but she never met him, yet it felt like she had. That might have just been his impression in the force that reached out to her. Bail was honest with her about her real mother and showed her a holo-vid once. That was lost on Alderaan along with everyone else, but at least she had seen it. Poor Luke never had.
There must be a balance...dark with light. After Vader and Palpatine were killed by Luke, it was only natural that a creature of darkness like Snoke should appear. Leia had been as fast as she could to reach out to allies. Many were so tired of the fight that they did not heed her warnings to come to arms. Many were now dead, hunted down by her own son.
Snoke seduced Ben to him just as Anakin had been to Palpatine. History was doomed to repeat itself, or so it seemed.
Years passed and Luke disappeared into his self imposed exile. Leia understood why he did it, but some days she so desperately needed her brother. Luke was her moral compass and always gave Leia a differing perspective.
Han was gone and Luke even blamed himself for that. No; Ben had shattered the connection between all of them. Her son...was...he was the light of her life and the bane of her existence. One day she would have to come face to face with him. If he didn't blow her ship into space dust rather than deal with meeting her again.
Han died trying to bring Ben back to the light and if he couldn't, then Leia knew Ben was truly lost.
Over the years of Luke's exile Leia dream walked towards him many times. She was subconsciously looking for her lost twin, only to feel nothing but cold, remote and alone. Yet, she knew instinctively that he lived and that she would feel Luke pass into the force. She was convinced of that much ability in the force at least.
Disaster was chasing them through space. Ben was near…and the girl...Rey...there was some sort of connection between the two. If only it was enough to bring him back to the light.
A sudden shock hit Leia...somehow the darkness seemed...thinner...somehow. Snoke was dead...good...she could feel lightness bleeding through the cracks in the darkness.
Ben was in a rage...she felt that too. He had killed Snoke...becuase of Rey. Leia prayed that the girl could reach him without turning herself. The dark was the easy path. An easy way to deal with pain, through rage and revenge.
What was left of the resistance was behind her huddled in the bunker waiting for the end to come. The last defence of the desperate rag tag group. So few of them were left...was it all for naught?
Leia had wanted to weep for those that they lost, but knew there was no time for their personal sorrows. She had felt it all in her comma, she saw Han and Luke and they were arguing like in the past. She felt a comforting peace encompass her in her dream like state.
For a moment Leia believed that she had become one with the force, just as Obi Wan Kenobi did in front of them all those years ago. The old hooded jedi, doing battle with her deepest personal nightmare...her own father. The man who tortured her by using a mind probe on her.
Luke had been far more willing to accept the fact that Darth Vader, the killer of millions in the name of darkness, was actually their father. It made shivers run down her spine still.
Perhaps this was why Ben was always so interested in hearing stories about Anakin Skywalker. They had tried to use stories of Vader as cautionary tales yet...it seems they were actually a blueprint to follow for Ben.
In Leia's most recent vision through the force, Luke turned to look at her with a sudden sad expression.
"Leia, I'm coming...but I will not be there long. I'm sorry for all that I failed our family. I love you...forgive me for what I must do."
"There is nothing to forgive Luke." Leia had whispered to the wind and the force shared between them.
Now as she gazed out over the salt plains of this old rebel base, Leia knew that Luke had better make it soon or it would all be too late.
Luke came right up to her. Everyone was in awe, that the legendary Luke Skywalker had appeared from nowhere. Leia knew that this must be taking up a tremendous amount of energy and power. It was a manifestation of him. This was very real to everyone there but her. She knew that Luke was not there. Leia hoped that he could survive this and joked about her new hairstyle.
The real Luke was still distant, on a planet hidden from view. It must have been a place of a powerful Sith or Jedi death to be so well hidden. Leia knew that her son had been searching for a very long time. Leia also knew why Luke tried to kill Ben, his own nephew. Luke could see the future that Leia had dreaded all along.
Love for her had stayed Luke's hand and now look at what had happened. He wallowed in guilt and loneliness for what he had tried to do and Ben went even farther into the dark because of it. Luke created his own dark prophecy where Ben was concerned. It seemed that the force was always doing that to it's vessels. Leia had begun to believe that the force was actually a spirt entity that took delight in inhabiting mortals and playing with them in this way. Showing them just enough to spur them into action but not enough to do it without massive repercussions.
Luke returned in time to save them as did Chewie and Rey in the Falcon. Leia had to admit...that old bucket of bolts still made her heart soar.
Luke passed peacefully into the force. Leia felt it. It was not as wrenching as when Han died after they had just been reunited.
Luke's death was a symbol and it would be for the new rebellion to come. Leia would continue for as long as she had breath. This fight was her entire life, for good and bad. Her part in it was coming to a close soon, she knew this.
Now Leia gazed across the Falcon at the rag tag group of fighters she was left with.
The young girl Rey was a shining example of what Leia could have been if Obi Wan Kenobi had taken her to Tatooine instead of Alderaan. If Leia and Luke's position and destiny had been switched.
As they fled in the Falcon and Leia noticed parts of her past in the next generation of heroes. She could see herself and Luke in Rey. Poe was a healthy combination of Luke and Han with his fly boy attitude and his trusty droid along for the ride.
Yet Poe's bravado and his desire for command reminded her of Lando. Strange how we look for the people who meant the most to us in those younger. Searching for the familiar throughout the generations.
Finn was different...he had strong similarities to Han, having pulled away from the grasp of the new order as Han did the Empire. Rey was very drawn to him but now he tended to the injured Rose, just as Leia remembered tending to Luke after cloud city.
Leia could sense Rey's heart ache in watching him. Leia wanted to tell her...tell her...what?
That it would all be fine? Because...it won't. False platitudes won't help the fact that this girl would likely have to sacrifice herself as Luke did. Give everything of herself to the force and train others to do the same, all just to have to fight and possibly kill Leia's evil son.
Maybe Leia should train enough to fight him? Make Kylo Ren face her in battle. She would surely lose but maybe, just maybe….Ben would give over and she could wrap him in one last hug before she killed him and her own heart stopped beating.
Mauldin thoughts of such a tragedy swirled through her mind. It would be a fitting end to them both, but another would likwey rise to take Ben's place.
This was why Leia wanted to spare Rey the final fight with Ben.
The force felt empty for Leia now. There was no longer anyone to bind her to it, as Luke had in the past. It had served her well, in the limited capacity that she had used it in her life. It had definitely saved her in the cold vacuum of space.
Over the years the force seemed to become stronger within Leia, only as it needed her. It was how she found Luke in the clouds all those years ago. Perhaps the feeling of completeness will return to her as she passed into the force to join Luke and Han.
Leia had thought that Luke had severed their bond years ago when he went into hiding. Leia now knew that she had been very wrong about that.
Luke had never left her. Han had, but her brother never did. Leia knew this because of the emptiness he had now left in their force bond. She had a feeling that Luke would continue to guide her until the time that she joined him in the force.
Leia honestly doesn't have the strength left in her to continue much longer. Her last wish was that these young, strong people...this...new hope...would be enough to win the galaxy and tip the scales to the light side.
Force knows; that the dark side has had it long enough.
The end.