A/N: i dont own star wars. if i did padmé wouldn't have died like she did and lets leave it there. as always please please R&R, feeding the muse. un-beta'd so all mistakes are mine.

"Why couldn't you kill him?" Leia asked, looking at her mother.

Padmé smiled, soft and sad, "I loved him. I love him," she said.

"Even after everything he did?" Leia whispered, incredulous.

She had come here for some kind of answer, but what she heard wasn't giving her what she needed. Instead, she was filled with a simmering, quiet anger. She was a tiny ship, unmoored and tossing in the middle of an endless storm, going farther and farther out to sea.

Padmé's bitter grief surrounded them, and she laughed, "You and I both know that love isn't that straightforward. Love doesn't just die overnight."

"But —" she wanted to object, but her mother came closer, and she swallowed her words. There was nothing but love in Padmé Naberrie's ghostly eyes.

She was suddenly furious with her mother; if Padmé had been able to summon the strength to kill her husband… For a moment, Leia imagined what her life could have been, imagined growing up with Luke as her brother, by her side; she imagined growing up knowing about the force, understanding that it was her sensitivity to it that made her different from all her peers. But it was wishful thinking at best. Mama's face flashed across her memory, reminding her of what was and what had been. You can't waste your life away on might have beens Leila, mama had told her once when she'd been despairing over rebels she had failed. Mama's gentle warning was all the more pertinent and necessary here. Some darker part of the force wanted to swallow her into visions of her wishful thoughts and keep her there forever. She stubbornly held the picture of mama in her mind, hands grasping at the edges of it, pulling it closer. You can't waste your life away on might have beens Leila.

As much as Leia wanted to lay sole blame on Padmé and Anakin for causing the ruin and misery in her life, she knew deep in her bones that they were not the root of it.

She knew with total, unshakeable certainty that the architect of the tragedy that cradled and raised her was the Emperor. This thought filled her with a blinding rage that demanded action.

Go. Go. Go. Kill. Survive.

Her vision blurred with her tears. She couldn't lose herself to this, too much depended on her for her to fail. She angrily wiped the tears from her eyes, choking down her fury enough to focus.

"You are stronger than I ever was," Padmé said.

Her ghostly hand was solid and warm, brushing the tendrils of hair that had come loose from Leia's braid out of her face. Leia didn't expect the wave of grief that followed, submerging her and nearly drowning her.

"I don't know about that," Leia said, for the first time letting her fears and doubts escape her body, a frigid winter wind blowing from her lips, "I never feel strong enough."

Perversely, Padmé laughed, "Not strong enough? Oh Leia. Oh. Oh. You have survived against all the odds, and fought for the beliefs buried in your heart and bones with every fiber of your being. You are stronger than you know nouru."

Leia shivered, smiling weakly, "I'm stumbling now. I can't kill Luke. There is still so much light in him. I can feel it."

If it was Vader alone, she would have had little qualm about striking him down, even in the face of Padmé's disapproval. But Luke? Luke was a part of her. He was her best friend; nothing he could do would make her kill him. Not duty, not revenge, not hate; she had never been this loyal to a person in her entire life and it scared her. She had loved mama and papa with the whole of her heart, but the values and the fight they had instilled in her would have her let them die if it furthered the rebellion, if it brought freedom and justice to their broken galaxy — no matter how much she would hurt from it.

Her belief in the remnants of light in Luke was a certainty that she couldn't shake, no matter how irrational it sounded, even to her own ears.

Padmé's answering grin was brighter than the two suns of Tatooine at midday; it was a supernova of warmth washing over Leia, making her feel breathless and large, "You know what you have to do then, I suppose?" She said.

"I think…" Leia said, pausing, "I think so. I can't give up on him. Luke would never have given up on me if he was the one standing here. I'm sure of that."

There was so much pride radiating from Padmé's ethereal form, and with it something was settling inside of Leia; there was an end to the storm, and she could make it out in the distance, across the horizon.

"You think I can save them both," Leia realized, dizzy, breathless and still uncertain.

Padmé didn't answer, but her smile was enough.

Did she want to save Vader? Luke had wanted to. Could she bring herself to save Vader? For Luke? For Padmé? Her thoughts on the subject were clouded; the only certainty was that she wanted to save Luke — she had to save Luke.

"I am going to kill the emperor," Leia said, with more strength than she felt in her flesh and bones. This was not peace, but it was purpose, solid and unmovable; it was enough.

The force swirled around her, and this time, Leia let it in. She let herself feel all that she'd been denying since Luke had told her what she was, who she was. The inky tendrils of the force filled her, and it was as though she could suddenly see and hear now, after a lifetime of blindness and deafness. The force was an almost overwhelming wave of chaos crashing over her, but she held fast, unsinking.

She reached for button that released the covering for the stasis chamber that surrounded Padmé's long dead body and glass dissolved. Leia's hand trembled for a moment, but she took a deep breath in, grounding herself and stilling it. Then, she grabbed the lightsaber from her dead mother's grip.

"Thank you," she murmured.

Padmé's ghostly image began to fade back to nothingness as the glass rematerialized over her perfectly preserved body.

There, then, was a crowd of female figures behind her — her ancestors, all of them looking at Leia with deep unbinding love and fierce, fierce pride.

The voices braided together and they spoke as a single entity, words radiating with love.

"You are brave and strong and free. Don't look back."

Leia's grip on the hilt of her mother's lightsaber tightened, and she gave her fury direction. She wrapped herself in the cloak of love and pride her ancestors had woven for her in the holy silence of the tomb, and she left, never once looking back. Her purpose was clearer than it had been in months — in what felt like a lifetime.

If Master Yoda was surprised to see her at his home on Dagobah he didn't make a comment on it.

"Want to be a Jedi you do?" He asked.

"No," said Leia, and she was surprised to find that it was the truth, "The Jedi are dead Yoda. I want to be myself, my whole self."

I am here to save Luke, she did not say.

"Then come here why do you?" He asked. His tiny wizened body was surrounded by a cloud of confusion and uncertainty, lined with a bitter edge of fear.

"You know a path through the chaotic valley of the force. I am not fool enough to think that I can find my way through it alone."

This was not her whole story, but she hoped it would be enough for the ancient Jedi Master. Her body trembled for a moment, nearly giving her away.

Yoda gave her a wry smile, "Wiser than I thought you are,' he said.

"I hope so."

She did her best to banish the chill of uncertainty that came over her under Yoda's searching look. This was the path forward. The voices around her whispered. Yes, Yes, Yes.

There was a solid mass of uncomfortable silence making a wall between them for a moment, two, three, four. Yoda seemed to be considering something, musing wondering, planning.

Finally.

"Train you I will," Yoda said. His words tasted of withholding, his tiny body obviously filled with some unspoken secret that the whispering voices that had followed her the whole of her life wanted her to know. Thousands of voices clamored around her. Ask, ask, ask.

"On what conditions?" She said, rooted with a strength she hadn't realized she was carrying with her.

"Clever one you are, if mistrusting."

"What do you want in exchange for this?" Her voice was sharp and bitter like the winds that had howled through the peaks of the mountains surrounding the winter palace on Alderaan that had frightened her when she was a tiny child.

I am not frightened of the cold now, she thought, and she was surprised to find that it was true.

Yoda seemed to think about it for a moment as though rifling through all the known words trying to find the softest most palatable ones to show off.

"Consider the Jedi way you will," he said. There was something else there that the wizened Jedi master was not telling her, but she got the sense that nothing she could say or do would compel him to reveal it to her. His withholding was a sour taste in her mouth, a bitter beginning to their relationship.

She would never be a Jedi, that certainty too was buried into her bones, carried with her from birth through the name she held. She would never call any being master.

"You're my sister," Luke had said, voice firm as durasteel, eyes shining with love.

She had known, instantly that his words were the truth; something in her had clicked into place, filling a void of longing that she had always held inside herself.

"I wanted to tell you," Luke had said, pausing for a moment, looking at his grimy hands, "I needed to tell you. Ben told me when I showed him your message."

"Oh," she had said, at a loss for words; she had felt as though the air had been knocked out of her lungs.

The old Jedi general had known all along, and he had kept them apart; she was suddenly furious with a being beyond her reach — a dead man. Luke had known though, and he was telling her now.

He'd grabbed her hand squeezing, "There's nothing we can do about it now Leia," he'd said. And there it was again, his funny way of enunciating her name, his outer rim accent thickened whenever he said it.

She asked what it meant, and he'd told her, voice low and serious.

Leia was the Krayt Dragon, goddess of the desert storm and the third moon, bringer of justice, gloriously free, slave to no one: at least, that was how Luke had described it to her all those months ago. She held that name in her even now, even knowing that it was a gift to her from her hated, lost, lost father.

She remembered Luke's blue eyes staring into her very soul, his gentle voice tumbling over her like the waters of one of the bustling little creeks falling down the side of the mountain by the summer palace, into the village below. This was the peace she was seeking.

Luke was the second sun joy and rage, all in one, bittersweet, the fiery bird flying side by side with the Krayt dragon over the dunes, calming the chaos she creating. There had been some kind of fierce and unbreakable defiance that shone from his face when he told her this. She had grasped his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly, as though trying to find some of that defiance for herself.

Luke had told her the stories of his family gods, passed from mouth to mouth, mother to child on all those nights when they'd sat together on the couch in the common area drinking blue milk in the darkness of the midnight hour. His stories had felt familiar, as though she'd somehow always carried them with her. Something ancient in her blood had stirred, quiet and deadly, waiting, waiting.

The joy had dimmed in her brother's eyes the night he had told her what madness lay in waiting in their blood. No. It had begun to dim the moment he'd discovered the madness, slowly burning out as he held the madness a secret close to his breast. But the light in Luke's eyes had finally burst when he'd spit his secret, his shame from his mouth out into the still, warm air between them.

"Vader is our father," Luke had said, almost inaudibly. The words had tasted rotten, but they were the truth. Her stomach had sunk like so many heavy weights, a denial, stale and quiet had laid on her tongue, begging to be freed; she had choked it down, just as she had the rotten taste of Luke's truth.

It was only a month later that she had lost him to the quiet madness that bubbled in their blood, and had nearly lost herself too. Even now, she swallowed down that madness. Han's hand in hers, his soft, knowing gaze fortified the wall she'd built to keep it out.

"We'll bring him back home where he belongs your worship," Han had said, with us, he did not say, but the feeling was there. Leia had been so grateful for his support, his presence, his staying that she hadn't even mustered up the energy to tell him off for calling her your worship, as she was wont to do on a normal day. Instead she'd quirked a lopsided smile at him; and for the moment, that had been enough.

She had gone to face Luke alone; she couldn't put Han into this, couldn't lose him too. This was a mission best undertaken alone. She had been alone before, and she could be alone again, she told herself.

"The Emperor showed me the error of my ways," Luke had said, "He showed me what power I had been made blind to by the poison of the Jedi. Come now sister, let me show you the truth of our gifts."

He had stood, hand outstretched on the other side of the platform, silent, waiting.

His words weren't really his own and they were riddled with falsehoods, bitter and nauseating, but she couldn't clearly pick them out. What had he been made to believe? What was he resisting? For a moment, she had drowned in his golden eyes and the lies had tasted sweeter than the sweetest berry that had ever touched her tongue and she had felt thirstier than she had ever felt, wanting, wanting, yearning.

A cold, dainty hand that wasn't pulled had her back. Luke's words were not his own, his soul was caged and his body stood at some strange angle; he was a puppet and the Emperor held all the strings in his wizened hand.

She ran away, narrowly escaping, panting, body shaking. When she'd returned to the base Han had found her and scolded her for going alone. She had, much to her consternation begun to cry, unable to stop the tremors that went through the whole of her frame. Han, always perceptive about her (though he denied all accusations of it) had enfolded her in his arms and soothed her, letting her drain her tears into his shoulder, holding the world at bay. His love swirled around them in the force, a living breathing thing, and she unconsciously grabbed at it, as though she were a woman starving, reaching for crumbs of food.

Now.

She and Luke stood on opposite sides of a war that she had been waging since childhood. Luke stood, and bowed at the side of their father, both of them slaves playing a part in the Emperor's carefully crafted play, a deadly art, finely honed to sickly sweetness.

She had undertaken this trip to Dagobah alone, secreting herself away from the base in the dead of the night, dodging the Alliance Council, Chewie and Han completely, just as she had her with her dangerous trip to Naboo. As she had flown through the vastness of space, towards the sticky swamps of Dagobah, suddenly stricken with uncertainty, she had wished she had somehow been able to bottle Han's love and strength and faith in her to take with; all she had been able to carry with her was the memory of its sweetness on her tongue.

Now.

She stood, still, meters from Yoda, leaning against the smoking hull of her Y-Wing.

I am as solid as a mountain. I am as firm as the ground beneath my feet, she told herself. She could see the mountains of Alderaan and Naboo in her mind's eye, and she held onto the image.

"Detach yourself from your brother you must Leia," said Yoda, "Kill Luke and Vader you must."

She had suspected that he would say such a thing to her, and thought herself prepared; what a foolish thought!

Leia said nothing, not trusting her tongue to hold its fury if she spoke.

She buried her wings and hid her fangs, biting her tongue.

She would be as full of compassion and love as Luke had been; she had to be — this was the only way forward. She would save him, and hold him in her arms. The light would shine out of Padmé's ghostly eyes even brighter; this she promised herself, voiceless but no less grounded.

I am a mountain, solid and forever. I am not chained to the tragic play made for me.

I am brave and strong and free and I will not look back.

She swallowed and looked Yoda in the eyes and said, "I am ready to be trained Master Yoda."

She bowed before him and her stomach churned; she had to do this, she reminded herself. She had never before called any being master; the blood in her veins and the ghosts of her ancestors rebelled against the word and it tasted like ash on her tongue. This was for Luke, Luke who had saved her when she was drowning in her fury and her grief following the destruction of her homeworld with his gentle voice and kind heart.

I am coming for you Luke, she thought, and she fancied that he could hear her voiceless promise.

Leia rose to her feet and broke eye contact with Master Yoda, staring out across the swamp behind him. In the distance in the steam that rose from the waters below, she could see the outlines of the ghostly forms of her ancestors, and the warmth of their love fortified her once more.

I am brave and strong and free and I will not look back.