Leia happened to be alive during a time of galactic history where most star systems were fairly well mapped out. This moon she looked out upon from the sheltering orbit of the Millennium Falcon was no doubt researchable. She could check the scopes on the ship and get readouts for air quality, gravity levels, and even what indigenous species could be found.

Would a scope indicate the moon was a hideout for smugglers?

She paid tribute in her mind to the era of exploration, to the pioneers who contributed to the space charts and risked their lives thousands of years ago. Without them, hyperspace travel would be too risky. Also without them, the Empire would not have been able to strip so many worlds of its natural resources as swiftly as it had.

This moon was still very green, which told her a number of things. There was heavy precipitation, also evidenced by the crater lakes. The green color indicated chlorophyll, which meant photosynthesis and an atmosphere rich in oxygen. Simply put, forested. The Empire had not yet managed to turn the forests into timber. Maybe the smugglers had something to do with that.

Smugglers had a dangerous reputation. They were criminals, and greedy, with no respect for law. They stole, they were violent, and they helped crime lords ascend to dangerous levels of wealth and power.

Yet Leia had personal experience with one who was also brave, who was very strict about the few principles he maintained, who was clever in imaginative ways, and quite possibly kind.

Did the smugglers protect the moon? Did they prevent the Empire from landing to save the trees, or themselves?

The answer was whether or not a hideout was a home. But to her current mood there seemed no stopping a process once it started. At some point, if the Empire should fail, some enterprising corporation would take its place and eventually the green of the moon would thin.

So just who was the villain? Did those earlier pioneers deserve to shoulder some of the blame for what happened to the galaxy? Had they any idea of the future, of the technological advances that would make the galaxy they charted unrecognizable? Alderaan was now missing from it.

Humans, she thought. Our own potential risks our existence.

Part of the moon was in shadow. They traveled the orbit long enough it had become night. Night for the moon but not the Millennium Falcon. Leia's gaze circled the cockpit: the blinking lights, the worn chairs.

She wanted to do something. Or go somewhere. Not just hang in an orbit. But she knew she couldn't, not until this moment in time was done. At least she wasn't pacing. If something was going to happen, she needed to prepare for it. Her eyes fell to her own seat and the datapad on her lap.

Dr. Renzatl, she started to write.

I feel like we were in the middle of something. I don't wish to formally close our sessions but I don't know if I'll be able to sit in your office anymore. Thinking of your office, of the kaf machine where I can privately gather my thoughts if I need to, of the window I suspect you open just for my appointments, of the holocube that rests on your desk in the front of the room, I realize how professional you are, but also how gently human, and I wish to thank you.

I didn't think, when I started, that I needed help, or that I could be helped. I was waiting for Time, I think, to pull me out or down, but I see now that I had more control than I thought and with your guidance have slowly come to grasp that.

I know how you will react. You will graciously nod your head and tell me you are pleased to hear that, and then you will ask what I mean by the middle of something, and you will make a note on your tablet.

And that's when I stop talking. I have even stopped writing.

Your transcriptor would record many minutes of silence, I suspect. I wrote that just to get me started. You would be aware of me letting the time pass in silence, and you would nudge me. You would remind me, I think, of the last time we spoke together. I had told you I was granted permission to accompany one of the Arrivals to his new home on Coruscant with relatives in Imperial City.

The middle of something. I believe it is me emerging from a pile of rubble. No one pulls me out but I have managed to claw out on my own. I stand there, a little unsteady, and I wait for the dust to clear, because that is when I will know what to do.

That isn't what I want to talk about. I don't know if that surprises you, that I am not interested in discussing my fight with the Empire. Particularly since my inability to return is directly connected to it. I remember once in your office I was unable to still may anger about Palpatine. This time it is I who have provoked him. I have engaged him, and... I don't know. Have I taken control? Do I have my own corner of the war? Whatever the reason, the dust has cleared so perfectly, steering me.

I am more distressed that Buteral could suffer. But this time there is no Death Star. This time I can stop it. This time Darth Vader's fingers aren't digging into my shoulders, holding me back.

The dust is clear and my fight is obvious. I should be surprised that I am not the least bit resistant to the idea of war. Alderaan, after all, was pacifist.

My father was resistant. It had been some many hundred years since war touched Alderaan's soil, and in policy the queens stayed out of armed galactic conflict. That isn't to say they didn't support the ideologies behind some wars.

My father wrote The Just War. He could write about it; he had a clear philosophy, but when it came to actually entering a war, he couldn't. Of course it would mean bringing an entire planet with him-

And so for years there was just a Rebellion, small and scattered, with financial backing from a peaceful, powerless world and the diplomatic skills and charm of its leader. Despite all his philosophizing, I don't believe it did much to turn citizens his way. Not until Alderaan-

It almost seems not like a war. It's both worse, and clearer. The amount of destruction. But the goal. Restore democracy. I suppose my father got what he wanted. It is just. Still, we may not win. I'm aware of that. And then what of Alderaan?

Looking out at this moon, I think of my mother, Alderaan's daughter, on her throne, and I think of Emperor Palpatine. I wonder if my mother's throne were like my view here on the Falcon, or any queen for that matter, and if our history would transpire differently if any of us stepped outside of our boundary. I don't know what gods guide Palpatine. Certainly nothing like the twelve who danced in the void of space and created a planet.

But not that. What the clearing of the dust reveals, besides the simplicity of the war, is the rubble below my feet.

I'm still backtracking (I just deleted three paragraphs until I became aware that I was cheating you- it is me I cheat, isn't it?- of my thoughts). From now on, I promise, no backtracking. I might correct a grammatical error, but I will leave my thoughts alone.

In your office I would need you to prompt me: the rubble below my feet?

Yes. The rubble. If the rubble is Alderaan, it failed to protect me. I feel very twisted and torn writing that and my stomach churns and my palm sweats and I want to stop writing and go shoot targets. I feel I have to apologize for thinking that because I failed to protect it, and that is the sole job my father and I were entrusted with by the goddesses after the passing of my mother the Queen.

There is rubble right there. My mother the Queen. No punctuation separating the roles. But I was her daughter, the Princess.

I loved her and I loved being the Princess. I was, and am, proud of all that it provided me. I once thought my education, my training, my mother the Queen, made me a very smart, worldly person. And yet-

I am writing from somewhere. Captain Solo won't tell me its name or location. I think he thinks he's protecting it. Why it would need that from me, I don't know. Sometimes I think he believes me far more capable of things than is accurate.

My point is, all he's told me is it's a smuggler's hideout. And it is he who told me of such things, not Alderaan. That is why after I apologize I... I don't know. I feel... like there's something Alderaan owes me. An apology as well. But it can't, because it's dead.

I peer down at the moon from orbit and I cannot tell there is activity. I once told you Captain Solo and I would never be friends before the Death Star, because our paths would never have crossed. It goes deeper than that, I realize. I didn't know his path existed. Do you see the difference? I would become Queen Leia, sitting naively on her throne, and there would be something I wouldn't know. Something for which I wasn't prepared.

Things I accepted because that's how they were. Things I believe my father, should he have won his Just War, wouldn't think to change.

It's complicated and it makes me sad. Captain Solo wasn't born a smuggler. Maybe he was, I don't know. He doesn't talk about his circumstances. Perhaps he started life, like all of us, a simple human baby who needed love and nourishment and warmth. That is the first path a human should find themselves. Why do we veer? Why are some of us not able to provide? Which was taken from Captain Solo, the love or the nourishment? Why didn't someone step in and offer aid?

He is a bit like me. Just a bit, in some ways that are important to me. He fights. He is older, and he is getting tired of the fight because more and more he thinks he can't win, but he has swept his own dust clear and ignores the paths most others take.

But this moon, with her hidden smugglers- again I think of Palpatine on his throne. How this view from afar might show him there is life beyond his control, sparking his anger. I think his view of Buteral, with Arrivals settling those odd humps of land, is the same. He obliterated the planet Alderaan yet Alderaani still populate the galaxy. It gives us a certain power, doesn't it. I have come to the realization we should harness that power.

I took a moment to re-read what I wrote. It is not that Alderaan didn't protect me. It's me realizing...a place I loved and was inherently a part of, one of her institutions, was...

Of course no place is perfect. But, as a child, as a Princess... do you realize I was never alone? I never thought about it much. Or perhaps I did, hiding in the hedge where I knew the maidens couldn't climb into, or swinging high in the sky where I knew they couldn't follow. Subconsciously perhaps I revolted as best I could.

I am alone now. My maidens are dead. I grieve for them, and yet... I hate that I think this. I almost can't write it. But-

I was looking at the moon. Thinking of the smugglers hiding down there, wondering if they as a group are like my maidens. They have a common project too, don't they? Keep the moon hidden. The maiden's task was to help the queen or princess follow the mandate of the goddesses. There's no more Alderaan, I think no more goddesses, and the maidens... it is cruel. I hate that I think this, I do, but... in my present I no longer want them with me. I don't mean as people. They were lovely, fun, pestering. I do grieve for them. I am sickened about what happened to them. But even in my cell of the Death Star I remember thinking it was just as well they weren't with me.

And gods, what a crowd it would be aboard this small freighter! Chewbacca and Captain Solo do not demand my time. They might invite me to join them, or they leave me alone. It has offered me a huge shift in perspective and behavior. I don't always have to be "on", or appropriate. I don't feel so like public property. Which is what a Princess was, and I was trained very well and I understand that. I don't think I knew I could dislike it.

I find myself thinking of Lennist, too; the boy contracted when we were toddlers to become my mate. I don't know why. Maybe it is because Captain Solo is the only one to have asked me Since if I was married. He hasn't dwelled on it, but I find I do.

I wonder what four year old Lennist's reaction was when they told him. Most likely he shrugged in acceptance and ran off to play with his toys. And while he grew up, they prepared him...

My marriage wouldn't come until after I was queen, and again, I think it was something I didn't know I could refuse. Or would if I knew I could.

If I would be happy. If I would be loved.

To think that in my twenty years I barely gave my imminent marriage a thought. That for me, the decision to marry wasn't. That I would wake up one morning and go to the altar, the same as I woke up other mornings and went to work.

What about my- I don't know what it is, exactly. My emotional self? My happiness.

I think, probably, I might have learned to love Lennist. I don't know. The two men I know now, Captain Solo and Luke... I would say I love them. Differently, too. I like that love isn't the same for each person. My acquaintance with them is still new, I know, but they have somehow wormed their way into my heart. I am glad they are there. That's love, isn't it? I don't believe I ever felt that about Lennist.

My mother would call it a sacrifice. And I understand that. I understand, I agree with, the components of the arrangement. And yet, it's the Death Star that is telling me there has been no consideration for my person, that there should be.

Would I develop the same companionship with Lennist I have with Captain Solo? Would I have this feeling of affection for him I do with Captain Solo? Was it just the Death Star, or is there more?

For I feel... I would want his happiness. Not happiness. His safety. If a real threat from that bounty of his came down, I believe I would rush to his aid. Because he is a friend. Because he was a friend to me.

It is confusing, for I smiled at Lennist when I saw him, it didn't bother me to dance with him. Was he a friend? Or were we both obeying societal conventions? He never came to me with a problem. Luke made me his problem as soon as he learned I was on the Death Star and I hadn't even met him yet!

I do confess Captain Solo is very appealing in ways Lennist wasn't. I like the way he approaches me. His respect is not for my office, and my mother would be shocked he treats himself as my equal, but that's- I accept it. And I approach him with respect and equality. Most of the time. Again, it stems from the Death Star. It was equalizing. Me being a princess had nothing to do with getting us out of there, nor did his being a smuggler affect our escape.

We have traveled together now several times, and spent many hours alone together, and yet he is so different from a maiden or Lennist. Actually, I don't believe I was alone with Lennist at all since we were ten years old. I would see him at functions, of course, and we always had the first dance together at balls.

And why wasn't I alone with a boy who would become my life partner? Could a princess not be trusted with her own self? I have been alone with Captain Solo and can assure my maidens, my mother, nothing scandalous has transpired.

Is it wrong to say that I would like the chance to dance with Captain Solo? I think it would be different than it was with Lennist. I would feel my hand in his rather than perform the steps.

There's something, too, in this equality. I don't believe Lennist would understand what the Death Star did for me, even if he were there. My fall, as it were. Captain Solo sees I can climb back.

Sometimes I miss Alderaan so much it is physically painful. And sometimes... what hurts isn't the planet but that I see it so differently. I want to ask it why.

Well. You don't have the benefit of watching me talk; my gestures and expressions. What would happen in your office at this point is another long silence. I don't know how long I've been staring out at this moon.

Am I thinking? Remembering? I don't recall, to be honest. I have a faint idea my thoughts strayed and at the end I am trying to understand Palpatine. I was never aware I revealed something of myself but I know you found things.

Captain Solo is Corellian. Do you think that is why I am having trouble? He knows nothing of Alderaan. He is not confined by culture in the way Lennist would be. And- he's unique in that he isn't what others term as sympathetic towards me. Nor is he antagonistic or challenging. Pragmatic, I suppose. He just says things. He asks if I'm married and although he is standing right next to me on that rubble my feet slip and I fall to my knees.

I become very pensive each time I fly with him. But it's not him; it's his ship. In his presence, I am more argumentative. Perhaps I have been lying to myself and I am surprised at his idea of equality. Maybe he puts me on the defensive. But it is also true he is easy to rile with teasing or observation.

I've always liked to travel. When I do, I think of the human history. Where we started, that we developed wings without physically evolving them. It makes us seem... amazing. Profound. We are dreamers.

In a way, the Millennium Falcon is a kindred spirit. She, too, was brought aboard the Death Star. Twice she flew through the Graveyard. She feels familiar.

You don't even need to ask why. The first safe place I was after Alderaan. I imagine like what a mother's arms feel to a child. And she remained safe, despite the lateral controls failing.

Her malfunctions puzzle Han. Pardon me. It is quicker to write 'Han' than it is 'Captain Solo'. You will forgive my shortcut. He is not surprised by them, but he is always fussing and tinkering that I think he's almost hurt by them. Chewbacca says it's the constant tinkering and testing of her systems that causes the malfunctions, but I am not sure.

But on the ship, I find the dust is quieted. There are no paths for me to embark upon. Instead I harness what I find there. A Wookiee, who if I take the time to learn his language, tells me what it's like to be a slave (something else Aldeaan kept from me), and about his family. A training remote, which allows me to test my physical ability and win. A smuggler, who, through his own lack of self-awareness, reminds me that I am guilty of ignoring my own. I can remember, in safety, without judgement. I am allowed to think and just be. There is no pressure of war or my office or how the two clash.

I suppose the theme of this session, since you like to look for one, is that I continue to explore what it meant to be Alderaani, and what it means for me now. More and more, I'm aware of who I was before the Death Star, and-

Not who I was. What I had. And what I have now.

Yes, it's another list. I have mine of the dead and the Arrivals are adding to it from their own. Our joint project. There's also a living history project taking place on Buteral, of which I approve, but my project lists the dead.

My new lists are things. Physical items. Clothing, people, a thought bowl. I think it is good the list of things Since is growing. Some of what I have listed before... I suppose they are concepts: security, love, contentment. They twist me up inside. They make me so bitter. Are they a lie?

I'm not... happy with how I feel about Alderaan. That's the one thing missing. I am too many things: angry, guilty, resentful, sad. Alderaani. But not happy. In this turmoil, when I visit a happy memory I wonder how true it is.

My own experiences provoke me. There have been some tough moments. Relapses, almost. I have to keep reminding myself about Tarkin and the Death Star, and I am not quite convinced. Strange things, like seeing Alderaani at large in Imperial City or the death of two Imperial officers made me so terribly weary and sad. Not for me so much as for Captain Solo, for the living Alderaani, for the dead. Sometimes I wonder why I fight, when I think over the great span of time it won't matter to anyone. Sometimes I wonder why this happened to me.

But then I think it happened to all of us.

Your eyes will be wide, me dropping hints at astonishing events and not explaining them. You don't need to know those, I think. At least not yet. I am more concerned with the rubble below my feet. Do I just walk away, do I sift through the ruins and find a remnant, or do I try and put the pieces back together again?

I am awaiting General Rieekan's signal. It has been a while and I hope all is well on Buteral and the delay is caused by the moon we hide behind or the delicate functioning of Captain Solo's ship. If General Rieekan orders me to return to Buteral I will delete this and look forward to seeing you. Otherwise, I will make arrangements to send this file to you.

You usually thank me for my work upon departure. I am often dazed or stunned when I leave your office. Today, after writing this, I am... more collected. I will contemplate the view of the moon some more. I am still in the middle, but you will be glad to hear I am careful where I put my feet.

Thank you,

Princess Leia Organa

Patient 20326