Title: Holiday Heritage
Author: taramidala
Rating: G
Time Frame: Um...pre ANH and slightly post ROTJ? More "Legends"-verse than New!Canon, if only because we don't know anything yet.
Disclaimer: All belongs to Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Disney Corporation except for the concept of "First Night," a holiday of my creation.
Note: I love the idea that Sabé ended up on Alderaan raising Leia and Winter. Here's another short!fic about that.
Note (2): I had no beta on this one, so any mistakes are mine.
"Holiday Heritage"
The Naboo tradition of First Night is not one shared by Alderaan, but one Sabé carries with her anyway on the eve of every new year. With aid from the palace chefs, she sits down her charges to a mini-feast of Naboo delights in her suite: sweetcakes, mincemeats, and grassroot teas.
She leads the girls in remembrance and thanks for the year that's past. She prompts them for their wishes for the year that's ahead. In the early years it's talk of toys and dolls and pretty clothes. Books come later, then technology.
Most of all, there's talk of home, her home, and history, of the way things were.
Of her childhood, she speaks of green grass and tall trees. Of a gleaming city of marble and light. Of waterfalls and running wild, running free. Of art and service and propriety.
She whispers of war and darkness and things that still are, and how they came to be. Young queens taking on too much too soon too fast, and scheming politicians with too much authority. She preaches for peace and justice and resolution, and how they can be again. Soft sermons, always, skillful wordplay and subterfuge, lest her dissent drift out into the open.
There's manners and propriety always. History and politics, too. Skill and cunning are necessary tools to young princesses who must navigate this new rebellious world.
To the dark haired one she talks of youth and beauty and fight. Of a young queen much like herself who sought fairness and justice and whose end came too soon. To the white haired one, the second "sister," the handmaiden, she impresses anything and everything she can, relying on that child's perfect memory with all of her might.
On the First Night of the princess' nineteenth year, she takes Sabé aside and fixes her with one final inquisitive gaze. They do this every year, she says, and now she must know why.
Sabé smiles, sweet and sad, and tells her "It is your heritage" and Leia must know lest Sabé die.
Those words will echo in Leia's memories for years to come, but their importance will not truly resonate until the Naberries invite her and her family, and Luke and his, to Naboo for the holiday. In that moment, Leia offers up silent thanks to the woman who raised her to remember.