❝ ORGANA;

          luke says it’s like a blanket. he wraps it around his shoulders as gently as their mother would, swaddled in the warmth of it, the love it gives him glinting like gold from his heart. obi-wan calls it a light, a flare of safety at the end of a dark, damp tunnel, your fingertips following the grooves of survivors long past to reach the sun.

          but leia can see it for what it really is: a weight, a crowd of voices speaking so loud and fast she can hardly decipher their words, catching snippets of peoples’ laughter and grief and heartbeats until it stuffs her head with cotton. and yet, she tries, she really does, her little hand shaking, her nose scrunched as she focuses on the stone lying in front of her. she knows obi-wan is watching, just as she knows he’s expecting her failure, just as she knows she so desperately wants to prove him wrong. and there, almost in response, the stone trembles for a moment; she gasps, eyes wide, palm clammy and cold with exhaustion— but as quickly as the power had come it leaves, the rock falling still once more, and she can’t help but stomp out of frustration, her fist thrown to her side.   ❝ i just can’t do it! ❞   she shouts, and the intensity of her emotions rattles the walls in a way she’s too wound up to notice. tears spring behind leia’s eyes, pressing hotly against her lashes before she dams them back with the butt of her hand. she retreats from obi-wan immediately, avoiding his comfort, sitting on the ground to tuck her knees to her chest in a very childlike way. how small she looks here. leia practices adulthood so much it’s easy to overlook her immaturity, but here it is all the same, a peach-pit of a girl left to sprout in the desert.

         ❝ how come luke finds it so easy and i don’t? ❞

          perhaps that is only fair. her brother is the last piece of softness on the rock that is tatooine— leia fits into the sharp corners of it without even meaning to, all teeth and nails and bad habits. still, how nice it would be to hold a dream like that. a pride. she turns to rest her cheek against her arm, hiding her voice in the back of her throat, embarrassment flushing out her features. she doesn’t want obi-wan to see her like this; he peered into her the way only a father could.

        ❝ … i’m never going to be a jedi. ❞

            and it begins as it had for the two of them so long ago: her hands holding his heart; her hands caring for him before she even knew what it meant.

          ❝ — hold still, will you? ❞     leia says, and though it clips out of her mouth it’s not with bitterness, but rather a teasing sort of tone. fingers weave one over the other in luke’s mess of golden hair, familiar movements that exist in that faded home beneath the stars. it exists in her own, too, long, chestnut locks overlapping one another until they trace along her spine, rigid with a practiced formality she hasn’t felt since she was a different girl in a different lifetime. she turns to her desk to search for a spare ribbon— digging through the drawers of old holo notes and trinkets— when a jump of her heart forces a flush up her neck.

          ❝ good skies, luke, i can feel your anxiety from here. ❞   leia returns to his back, tugging at the already unwoven braid with a little less patience than before.   ❝ you’ve nothing to be afraid of. these benefits, they’re— they’re more for schmoozing, than anything. ❞   politics. a roll of her eyes accompanies her words, easily visible in the mirror. a moment passes with another silence, and she sighs, dropping her palms to his shoulders, a reassuring chuckle offered to his reflection.   ❝ don’t worry. the galaxy is ready for a change. it’s ready for us. we just need a little time to earn their trust. ❞   her smile splits her face in two as she gives a gentle squeeze.    ❝ and that starts with fixing this mess of yours. alright? ❞

          ❝  mother?  ❞   a prayer uttered, a pin-prick of light that opposes the cloak of night surrounding them. and— poor thing— her clenched fists shake at her sides. this is courage in its most gentlest form: braving the storm of oneself to find comfort in another. she stands at the door and lets it pour from her throat.

          ❝  i’m sorry, i... i had that dream again. the burning man.  ❞