She knows he's there but not even that can make her come out as she listens to the low sounds of the searching droid her father must have sent after her rolling slowly closer to her current hiding place.

The stowed-away princess huddled even tighter into herself, hardly daring to breathe when the sounds of the shuffling droid stopped.

R2.

Her father knows her well.

Knows how very much she favored the quieter blue-colored droid from the loaned pairing they'd gotten for the rest of the month until her father's friend Captain Antilles came to collect them again. 3po is nice too but something about the dome-shaped service droid always draws her back to it if given the choice.

Despite her favoritism, the hiding princess doesn't give in so easily.

After several long stretches of quiet Leia starts to think the droid has given up on her when….

"Are you an angel?"

The question puzzles her for a few seconds. The voice even in sound bite mode wasn't one she recognized.

"Are you an angel?"

A boy's voice a year maybe two older than Leia was herself asks again.

This time the droid asked a question that made her giggle under her breath.

"An angel. I heard the deep space pilots talking about them."

Leia peaks out of her hiding place catching the slider edge of that familiar cylindered body rolled to a stop just out of proper view from her vantage point.

Clever.

R2 rolled a little closer now the droid knew he'd gained her attention.

"Mentors have a way of seeing more of our faults than we would like. It's the only way we grow."

That has a little more of the princess's attention.

So, she'd been right about her guess her father had the droid keep watch over her. That R2 had witnessed her earlier disagreement with her latest teacher in political lessons.

"If she really wanted me to grow, I'd be allowed to watch history cubes by now instead of reading and rereading star maps of places not even around because of the Republic." Leia scoffs. "I wanna know about the Clone Wars, about the Senators my father worked with before the fall of the Jedi." She confesses "I know father is only looking out for me but how can I possibly avoid his mistakes when I'm not allowed to view the steps that led up to them?"

R2 whistles sadly

"They keep treating me like I'm still a child, yet they expect so much from me at the same time." Leia sighs unhappy huddling even more into herself as she opens up a little more to the listening droid.

"Don't try to grow up too fast."

That has Leia giggling again. "Who was that?" she finds herself asking. Something about the voice had been. Familiar somehow. Comforting.

R2 seemed to hesitate before playing another sound clip for her.

"I am Queen Amidala."

the name was familiar to her. Her father when she could worm a few old stories from him before he grew wise to her tricks had spoken quite highly of the fellow royal.

Not that Leia had been able to find out much more about the woman herself other than she'd been a former ruler of Naboo and one-time ally of the man who would one day rip apart the galaxy.

For a while, Leia had hated her. Hated she'd had such a key role in giving Chancellor Palpatine the power he now wheeled unopposed. That her father's so closely held friend had turned her back easily to the looming threat Palpatine had so obviously posed. That was until her father had caught on to her annoyance of the Naboo former Queen having dropped in to listen in on that particular history lesson for his studying daughter.

"Those were different times, Leia." Her father had sighed smoothing a hand through her hair as she settled more comfortably against his lap as they stared out at the more twilight color tones of the skyline. "She was doing what she thought was in the best interests of her people and the galaxy."

"R2 you were part of the Clone Wars you can teach me so much more about them than any off-world teachers." Leia tries shaking herself out of the haze of remembrance. "Cause right now being a senator doesn't seem to be the right path for me. It didn't help then why would it help now?"

"The Queen is worried. Her people are suffering. Dying."

"I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee."

Leia nods in agreement with the softly spoken voice the droid pulls up. "Exactly. Talking won't work anymore. What people need now is action. Not another war. something else." Leia muses aloud "But I don't understand how I'm supposed to fight back if I'm not allowed to learn." She laments with an anger inside her that frightens her more than a little, but she pushes it aside for now.

"We'll take the long way."

"No, we'll take the right way." Leia argues "My people need help now not years from now when the Emperor decides to take even more away from us."

A whistle of what could be pride sounds from the small droid Leia was now leaning against letting the chilly side of the droid's rounded body cool a little of her anger as she leans against it.

"What good is political solutions when really they don't solve anything?"

Another sound clip of that familiar voice answers her.

"You call this a diplomatic solution?"

"No, I call it aggressive negotiations."

Leia giggles at the words from another point in time.

"but at the same time all Mother seems to be thinking of is who I should marry when the time comes for some kind of alliance." Leia grumbles "but like Papa and I keep pointing out. We're in a war. Love and War can't get along. One of them has to yield and right now my people need me to fight for them not fall in love with them. " she sighed "but my luck I'm more likely to fall for some scruffy faced smuggler running from the law than any of these stuffy robbed political types Mother seems to want me to be pushing me towards.

This time it wasn't a sound clip the droid played for her but a holo video.

A wedding it seemed like. Nothing too fancy like she'd heard her mother planning for when it was Leia's time to choose her husband. Simple. Secret. Beautiful.

"I didn't know Queen Amidala was married." Leia gaped watching as the figure she'd watched in the few holo cubes she'd managed to smuggle away from her instructors showed the former Naboo ruler standing elegantly yet modestly dressed before the holy man. A crossed from her standing her intruded groom. "Wait she married a Jedi?" the watching princess gasps in surprise noticing the clothes and leaner braid of the flickering young man standing at the holy man's other side. His hands lightly held that of his almost bride as the holy man blessed them under the view of the two droids standing to one side.

"3PO?" Leia recognizes "but he's never told me…"

"I had his memories whipped after he came into my services." The hologram memory immediately cut off at the sounds of her father's voice. "Peace R2 I'll not order the same for you, my friend," her father calms resting a hand against the domed-shaped head of the trembling droid. "actually it was that reason all along that I've allowed you to keep a fuller history in your memories than your counterpart." He attempts to explain waving his free hand towards the space the projected memory file had been resting.

"You're just as much her guardian as I am."

Leia feels the droid lean a little more into her side at this revelation.

"I figured having half of the legacy she carries be enough to guide her one day rather than trying to whip it away completely. She deserves to have at least a piece of her history and you my little friend are far more valuable to her as you are memories included. I just know it" Her father continues talking mostly only to the droid Leia was considering falling asleep leaning against if the two keep talking like this.

How could her father think her a good fit for a senator when long talks like these only threaten to put her to sleep when they trail away from the main topic like this? Leia wonders with a sleepy yawn.

"Tell me about Naboo, father?" Leia asks tiredly. "It seemed so pretty once."

"It still is in a way," her father says "one of the very few planets the darkness of the Empire hasn't poisoned completely."

"Why?"

Her father hesitates before giving an answer. Not the one he wanted to give Leia already knew but an answer, nonetheless. "I guess because that was the Emperor's home world at one point and even a villain like him needs something of his past to hold onto in the darkness of his deeds." He offers his heartwarming at the closeness of the droid and his daughter.

"Tell me about it?" Leia asks. "About Naboo?" she clarifies at her father's questioning look. "Tell me about a time before the Emperor. Before the fall of the Jedi."

Her father smiles at her heartwarming and caring. "Alright." He agrees settling in beside the other two as the early Alderaan sun starts to bleed into afternoon.