Chapter 2: Distorsion mirror
Her long ,black, wavy hair fell like a cascade and her blue-grey eyes shined like stars. She was tall, young and beautiful. She had some kind of natural elegance in the way she talked to the man next to her. Her voice was soft, but graceful, with an harmonious coruscanti accent.
She was the kind of woman that caught the eye.
And yet Garren Muln didn't understood how he had missed her all these years.
"What have you say it was her name?" He asked again as he watched the Jedi engaged in a long and—apparently—very interesting conversation with his long-time friend Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"Leia Organa" repeated Anakin for the third time in ten minutes.
"And she was on the temple until thirteen years ago when she was send in long-time missions on the Outer Rim?" He asked astonished.
"That was Master Yoda said. But now the numbers of Jedi are decreasing," and his voice went darker, "some of them have been called back. So was Organa. "
"But she's almost my age!" He exclaimed. "I think I would remember her"
"Well, I don't remember all my classmates, to be sincere. And most of them are fighting somewhere out there, I think i wouldn't recognize them if I met them again" answered Anakin, but the way he said it wasn't convincing at all. He had been so surprised by the way the woman had entered the Invisible Hand, the way she had talked to him.
He was intrigued, there was something odd about her. As if he knew her and at the same time he didn't. The way she interacted with Obi-Wan was particularly weird. At the beginning she had avoid him, as if she didn't feel comfortable in his presence. But it had been four days since the rescue and their first meet and for some reason she seemed more comfortable now. And she seemed to get specially well with his old master.
"I still don't understand how I didn't notice her, but I guess you're years are a long time"
A smile came across Anakin's face. It was the same time he had been with Obi-Wan.
"Indeed. I find you ask too much about her "he teased.
"Well, she's beautiful" said Garren as he winked. "But I'm just curious I guess"
"I suppose she is." Answered Anakin looking at both Obi-Wan and Leia. "And she seems to like my Master"
"A miracle. We all love Obi-Wan, but he can be difficult at the beginning" laughed Garren.
Anakin laughed as well.
"Don't let Obi-Wan heard you, Master Muln"
"I'm not scarred of him" grinded Garren. "What about apprentices. Has she any padawan?"
The look of pain was so obvious in her face that he felt inmediatly guilty.
"I'm so sorry, Leia. I shouldn't have asked" came Obi-Wan' s voice.
She looked at her other self.
She wanted to scream. To yell him to be careful, to tell him all the confess she knew the Sith Lord's identity , to beg him to protect Anakin with his life. Not to let that monster approach the boy. Not to let him follow the same path her Ana had.
But she couldn't. She had to be very careful with how she managed wit the whole situation. Yoda had helped her to have an alibi, but at the moment she felt a bit lost.
So lonely.
Yoda and Bail only knew what she had told them, so she was still alone with her past.
When she had appeared on that other world so similar to her own, and at the same time so different, she had reached first for the grand-master's aid, but he had just told him about her reality. Later the old Jedi had asked her if there was someone else she wanted to trust too. She had first thought about Galinda—Garren in this world- but she quickly removed that idea. She didn't wanted to involve more Jedi. On the other hand, she was very scared for Pad—now Padmé-, she knew now Palpatine must be keeping an eye on hear. It was then when she had though about Bail.
He was both her friend and Padmé's, she could trust in him.
Bail had recognised her at the first very moment he had been presented to her, called in urgency by Master Yoda into his private quarters. Somehow, inside him he had, just his brain had not processed it. He had stared at her, as if she was some strange animal from the end of the galaxy. Bail was no force-sensitive, it was not even used to the same strange things one as a Jedi could witness, and she had herself witnessed a lot. So she could understand his shock and lack of comprehension, as if there was difficult for his neurones to made synapsis.
Yet, it was very uncomfortable for her.
After the first impression and being confirmed by Yoda he wasn't dreaming, she had told him her story. It had been the most difficult part.
"Inscrutable the ways of the Force are. How you end up here, try to discerner I will. Help you, we will. Need a new identity until then, find we must".
She was silent during what it seemed an eternity. Her heart was beating with more force.
"Disturbed , young Kenobi, you seem. Speak you must"
"Master...I..." She sighed. She walked next to the window and she observed Coruscant skyline. The Coruscant she remembered. Before order 66. Before the nightmare.
When she had found herself in that alternative universe for the first time, more than five hours before, she had thought she had lost her mind. The pain of her lost had overcome with her. Her brain was taking her away from the living hell of Mustafar, back through her memories at one time she had been happy.
Unless it was not a memory—she had finally realized. She had been forced to acknowledge it. Everything was so real, so vivid- Force had whispered.
But she would never have imagined it was far more complicated than a simple jump in time. That would have been far more easier, as impossible as it was.
"Speak fearless, Obi-Wan. In us trust you can" insisted Yoda, bringing her back to the Jedi's quarter.
She gulped, trying to calm herself. She wasn't thinking clearly, all she could feel was the storm of emotions that overwhelmed her.
She had a chance! The force was giving her a chance to fix her mistakes... But as she was still realising what had happened to her, she knew the implications of her futures actions might be disastrous. Had she to just let things happen? It was not her world. She had no right to interfere.
On the other hand, her selfish part was screaming into her mind that she still could (somehow) do something for Ana's soul.
And for once in her life, her, the perfect Jedi Master acted on selfish purpose. She spoke before she had time enough to analyse what was she saying.
"The world, the time I come from...Master, if I can prevent this galaxy to follow the same path, I will do anything it's in my power"
Master Yoda narrowed. "That you are here, the will of the Force it is. Clouded, the future is. Yet, always in movement it is. A threat on the order and the republic I have sensed."
She looked again through the window. "You have no idea, Master" she mumbled.
"Maybe the reasons of your concerns, us to know you want. Lighten your pain we could"
She blushed. So her grieving was that obvious. She looked for a short time at Bail. He now looked at her as if she was the most interesting thing in the world. She knew him well enough to know he was trying to analyse the whole situation, concerned by the danger his beloved republic may be in.
"I think is not the wisest thing, Master"
She didn't exactly know why she wasn't telling Yoda the whole true. She was isolating herself, and that will only make things more difficult. She knew it, but she didn't add anything.
Yoda observed her a little more. She was getting really uncomfortable under his glance.
"As you wish, Master Kenobi. "
"Leia, do you feel okay?" Asked Obi-Wan.
"I'm okay." She sighed. "My apprentice...I lost her some weeks ago. This war killed her" and her gaze hid her sadness.
"I am so sorry to hear that"
"It's okay. I've got over it" she smiled, and she raised her most powerful shields , burying his feelings as deeply as she could.
Liar. Came the inner though.
Obi-Wan put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and a shiver ran through her back.
It was the first time her other self touched her, and it was...strange. She enjoyed his presence. She had been avoiding him at the beginning, but she had been forced to confront him at a moment. He was on the council, just as she had been, and she have had to give explanations of what had happened to Dooku.
"Dead during our escape" as she looked straight to Yoda's eyes. Everybody had believed her. She had felt ashamed, but had shown nothing. She was becoming a very good liar, and it disgusted her.
After the meeting, Obi-Wan had insisted on talking with her. He wanted to thank her for her help. It had been strange. Like looking into a mirror. A distorsion mirror.
"Have we met before?" Had asked Obi-Wan.
"I don't think so, Master." She had replied. "I think I would know if I knew the great negotiator".
One of the advantages to be talking to herself was she knew what boutons to push. And at that moment she wanted to end the conversation. Obi-Wan removed, uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry, I don't know why I ask you that."
"It's okay. I will see you later, Master"
And she had left.
The problem was she was very stubborn, and more as a man.
Obi-Wan seemed decided to know more about her, probably intrigued by her mysterious intervention in the Invisible Hand.
Soon, the strange feeling of being looking at a mirror had disapear. It was like beeing talking to a person very alike. Like having , in a twisted way, some kind of twin brother. And still they were so different. Apparently the change of gender was much more than just that.
It was completely another dimension, and so they were a lot of things different. It was tiny details, but for her, those details mattered. They formed the nuances in between her and the other self personality, making them two persons completly different.
And that was applicable at everybody in that dimension she was trapped.
Furthermore, events were not exactly the same, as she had discovered. Anakin was not yet a father. His twins weren't born.
She had not already meet Padme, and she was nervous at the perspective.
She didn't feel ready for it. The last time she had met those deep, chocolate brown eyes it has been before they lost their brightness forever. She had made a promise and she had failed.
She was still angry with Pad for marrying Ana, for having babies with her and then for abandoning both Ana and her.
She pushed the memories away as she smiled back at Obi-Wan.
"I have an appointment" he said. "I have to leave"
She frowned, trying to remember what it could be, but she just nodded.
"Of course, see you later"
Somewhere above time and space, the mirror shilghtly cracked.