This chapter is inspired greatly by uselessenglishmajor and Silmarilion279 (uselessenglishmajor, please consider changing your username - please? Because it's really not useless ;)). Great imagery, great writing, I was blown away more times than I can count and it still reverberates.
I always wondered what it would be like to put Padme and Rey in the same room – both women resembling each other both physically and mentally. But one will undo what the other has done, even if unwillingly (hint: their story arcs are very similar, only in reversed; and even their costumes mirror each other).
I know her ghost is at peace since Anakin's redemption, but let's say this is an energy signature – a trace of her existence that communicates to Rey and Rey only, recognizing a similar sort of soul.
Bonus: fashion became a thing in TLJ, not just mindless extravaganza, but also a statement and a supplement to the story. I wanted to play with that motive in this story.
This place weighs heavily on her. She thought she could live on what Light is left here, but it is more difficult than she expected. Everything is more difficult than she expected.
She simply ignores the stares of the First Order officers, the snickering of the decadent aristocracy, the murmurs of the weapon dealers. She just stalks away from all of them and from the Supreme Leader, who says nothing to her.
And that is good. Her urge to strike him down where he stands is still there, and the Resistance representatives are still on the landing dock. Saying goodbye to Poe hit her harder than she thought, but still she finds some comfort in the fact that she managed to pass him the information unnoticed.
Rain falls on the outside. The city lights ignite and it's like myriad of fireflies against the blurred glass. The rain is so dense and persistent that it looks like a deluge, like the whole planet would be swallowed up until the morning.
She finds strange comfort in that thought. It is this place, it is this situation – they both fill her up with unprecedented melancholy.
Her earrings pull on her earlobes like lead. She takes them off with a sigh of relief. She glances over them quickly. She wasn't the first one to wear them, most definitely. But whoever wore them wasn't on the Dark Side of the Force.
She places them neatly on the small table near the window sill, where she's sitting. She rolls Leia's ring around her finger and examines it again. Two dark blue stones glisten gently, undisturbed by this place, undisturbed by what has happened.
It gives her some comfort, again.
Come with me.
The gentle voice at the edge of audibility wakes her up from her sleep. She fell asleep fully dressed, her powdery gown spilled around her like warm liquid.
It isn't a hallucination. It isn't Luke's voice. It isn't his voice. He's asleep, but the sleep is a restless one. She can feel it.
Rey tenses. She knew this place is full of whispers, full of secrets and full of past.
Come. Let me show you.
She stands up and follows the voice through that vast labyrinth that is her chamber. It is still raining. The First Order reinforced curfew, so it is dead silence outside. Rey switches on the light and blinks. The apartment is empty, as she expected. This voice isn't from this world, isn't from this reality.
Come. Don't be afraid.
I am not afraid.
Rey follows the voice to the anteroom with high windows. In the dim twilight, she first sees nothing. There is nothing. But as her vision accommodates, a fragile figure appears on the far right of the window, half-concealed in shadows.
That's where she sat that evening. That's where she left the earrings.
Come closer.
Who are you?
She comes nearer to that shadow, but she has no fear. The figure is not intimidating at all, but soft-spoken and delicate. That same sadness she felt from the earrings radiates from that small-statured and frail young woman.
As Rey comes even nearer, she sees her exquisite features. Her perfectly oval face and her almond shaped eyes, slightly tilted upwards on the edges. Her full and perfectly shaped lips. Her royal robes overflowing from both her sides and her thick long hair almost reaching her narrow waist.
Rey has never seen a woman as beautiful as her.
But as her eyes wander off, she notices the young woman's belly is swollen. There is something inside – she is bearing twins. She smiles at Rey and melancholy permeates every single atom of her being. Something tragic has happened. Has she lost her children? Has she died in childbirth?
The phantom seems aware of her unspoken thoughts and of her sadness, but says nothing. She looks down in anguish and caresses her belly.
He is not coming back.
Rey is startled. The vision is strong, but the meaning escapes her. She shudders. She feels strong compassion to the woman who starts to feel strangely close and familiar. Yet Rey knows it is impossible.
Who is not coming back? Who are you waiting for?
The beautiful sad princess looks at Rey again with her almond eyes, shaded under long, silky eyelashes. She was crying. She shook her head.
He is not coming back.
And as Rey reaches out with her hand to touch the apparition, to make it stronger with the Force, the spirit is already gone.
The intercom behind her resounds like a thunder.
„Let me in".
He inspects the room intently.
Rey recoils from him.
„Who were you talking to"? He demands.
„A ghost", she thinks the honesty is the best policy.
„What"?! He hisses back at her.
Rey pierces him with her eyes.
„There was a young woman living here. Someone left her and wasn't coming back – someone very close to her heart", Rey answered firmly. „She was attached to those things... her sadness is overwhelming, like a river. I think she died at childbirth".
He is no longer roaming around like an agitated beast and stops in front of her. His nostrils widen.
She looks up at him and sees nothing of Ben Solo. Only Kylo Ren.
It makes her position much simpler.
„You know whom those earrings belonged to", she utters.
He twitches and gazes down on her, but says nothing.
„Whom have they belonged to"?
He hisses.
„They belonged to Princess Padme Amidala Naberrie of the Old Republic".
The name means nothing to her, but she senses it means a lot to him.
Her woeful lack of knowledge evidently frustrates him.
„She was Leia Organa's mother".