Alright! Here is the prologue for this story, which will be a bit more intense than the last one. But there won't be that many graphic scenes, because I don't do that.

A few notes: Padmé is an unreliable narrator. That is the aesthetic I'm going for here, but keep in mind: she is not entirely mentally stable. While she recovered partly from the effects of the torture, she never fully recovered. For example, sometimes she hallucinates. She'll say something happened... but did it actually?

Too, she has very definite opinions on people that affect the way she narrates about them. Luke was a more even-handed narrator; she isn't.

Finally, Breha Organa didn't have pulmonodes in this AU. I unashamedly stole the idea for pulmonodes (mechanized organ replacements) and gave them to Padmé in order to have her subtly mirror Vader because of the glow they give off from within her chest. So in this universe Breha and Bail adopted for other reasons.

Okay! That said, hope you all enjoy this story.

Prologue: Redder than Blood, Redder than Fire

'Now I know that there is a red which is redder than blood, and redder than fire. It seeps into my soul, with its waves of desire—be free, be free! Here is the one place in which I can respire.

'My durasteel lungs and my mechanoid heart, light as air, provide for me a fresh start.

'Here there is no Mustafar, and here there is no ash. For there is a red redder than all of that which haunts me from the past, and so I make my continued claim:

'He cannot have my soul. I will get up from this furnace floor, and I will fight. For I will not become ashes.

'And if I do burn... then it shall be in a better kind of flame. Such is my claim'

~ Poem by Princess Padmé Solo from her private journals

OOO

There was a red that was redder than blood, and redder than fire. This red spread through me in spirit and surrounded me in body, momentarily erasing the stains of blood on me and briefly extinguishing the hot fire inside of my head. I lay, floating, red becoming my world without overtaking my world as the furnace flames and the brutality of the blood always did.

My hair was spread out. My mind drifted in peace. I floated.

For once, I needn't think. For once, I needn't fight. For once, I needn't fear. In this one place, Padmé Solo could exist without interruption, without consequence, without struggle, and without pain.

Eventually, I opened my eyes. The deep-red flowers continued floating around me. But I freed them from my hair as I exited the pool of water.

My pool. Once, I had come here as a girl; it had been my special place. Though that girl was gone, I still retained a sense of ownership over this particular pool, which I'd once nicknamed the Regine.

How young, frivolous, and stupid that girl had been back then.

But I still came here to swim nonetheless. For it remained mine—despite it all.

And the springtime flowers currently floating in the silken, glassy water encouraged me. Never before had I realized there was a red deeper than blood or more profound than fire. It felt very much a healing realization. Like one of the shards that lay, hidden, within the broken mess that was me inside was able to fit back into place.

One shard.

Ten trillion to go.

Oh, I would never fix. I did not so delude myself. Sometimes I wasn't even sure I wanted to. I saw things differently than some, certainly, but I felt I saw more clearly. More… coolly. When I had lost my heart and my lungs in that terrible surgery on the Peace Star, after It had done its terrible deeds, I knew that I had lost more than my heart and my lungs and momentarily much of my mind. I had lost a certain ability to feel for certain people or things.

Like anyone who served the Empire, for example.

Like having qualms about killing when necessary.

Like desiring petty things such as frivolous romance or so-called "love" to be in my life.

But no matter. I saw more clearly because of all of it. I acted more coolly and rationally. Charmingly, of course. The perfect lady as always when the princessly moment demanded. Played the part. I remembered, still, that conversation I had once had with my uncle, wherein he wisely said, "Find a princess who is wholly you. It just doesn't have to be the whole you."

The issue with that was that I no longer knew who I was. The fires of Mustafar had burned away more than my heart and lungs and sanity: they had taken that girl with them, and everything she was, too. Everyone always said how lucky I was to survive. I only stared at them, for how could they fail to comprehend?

She didn't survive. I survived. A singular spirit, one with a single purpose and a single purpose only: end the Empire in every way. Kill It. And see the utter destruction of the system that hurt people so much. Make sure the fires of Mustafar took them, too.

You see, I made jokes about it, the gone heart and the gone lungs. "I'm feeling a bit breathless right now…" or "Sorry. That was a bit heartless of me…" But it was true. No one understood or recognized the deeper truth and utter sobriety behind my words.

Because I was heartless. I needed to be. And so every time I peered in the mirror at myself, such as I did now, I saw the warrior beneath the fanciful dress. The soft orangey lights glowed from within my chest and I remembered courage and sacrifice—

And heartlessness.

And I found the strength to go on. For It could not take me to Its furnace, too.

"Well," said 3V happily, clapping her purplish metal hands together, "you look almost tolerable for the Frosts' arrival!"

You see, once, such remarks and their inference of my painful plainness had hurt. Had cut. Now they merely bounced off my durasteel heart, which remained forever unbroken. Forever unhurt.

I turned my most ladylike, charming, and easy smile on my attendant droid. "All thanks to you, 3V."

She flourished a little bow, and then I headed out to war in my long silk dress with my dainty satin slippers on.

OOO

Author's note: Thank you for reading to the end! Now please leave a review if you liked this so far.

I have about four chapters of this written so far, and I will be posting the rest today.

Warmly,

Hope