And more rain
A "companion piece" to the previous chapter!
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Water was falling from the sky.
That was a funny way to think of it, Leia Organa reflected, as she sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the rain streaming down the windows. But then, she often thought of funny things, sitting cross-legged on her bed like this. Being sent to her room to sit still was the only suitable form of punishment for a princess of Alderaan who was as old as eight. That, or being made to do embroidery.
Her room was Leia's preferred option. No tangling threads, no knots that pulled loose, no aunts breathing down the back of her neck. Just peace and quiet to sit cross-legged on the bed and imagine things. Funny things. Like water falling from the sky. Or a sense of speed and flying. And a rather nebulous sense of a friend. Nebulous (Leia was pleased with that word for it) in that she'd never managed to imagine seeing him or her, whichever it was. Him, probably, Leia felt. Someone to run about and explore and have adventures with, if she could ever imagine him more fully; but in the meantime, just a sense of companionship while she was sitting here alone.
The most tangible the imaginary friend became were the times Leia's mind would imagine they were sitting to watch a sunset: a plausible excuse for why they were sitting, not running around. Then it was almost as if they could have held hands. They didn't, Leia would pretend to herself, because boys didn't like to do things like that.
It was a funny sort of sunset, too. It had two suns.
Sunset. Leia gazed rather sourly back at the window again. It didn't look like there was going to be a sunset here, tonight. It had rained for six whole days. Leia was so tired and bored from it, Mother had allowed Winter to come and play for this afternoon. But they had been stuck indoors, and they had both been tired and bored from the rain, and matters had descended into a squabble. Leia had said Winter was so tiresome, it was a wonder she hadn't died from it; and Winter had said Leia was a grouchy gungan.
At that point, Mother had got cross. Winter had been sent home, and Leia had been sent to her room.
It didn't make happy remembering.
Happiness. Leia stared at the water falling from the sky against the windows. How could you stay cross when there was water falling from the sky? So much water. Clear and cool and making happy plinking noises against the panes.
If you stood out in that torrent, you'd get wet. Gloriously, wonderfully, wet-right-through! And outside, there would be puddles, too. To splash in, or just with the raindrops falling into them to make beautiful, dizzying patterns of ever-widening circles...
…
There was consternation all over the palace of Alderaan for almost an hour before dinner, until Bail Organa found his missing daughter crouched in the rain in the palace gardens, soaked through but happily watching raindrops fall into a bucket.
She couldn't explain it.
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