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“Everything else I’d ever done, everything I’ve ever been, was erased in an instant.” Leia struggled to find the words. “People who had fought beside me in the war, or served beside me for years in the Senate—they didn’t even see me as myself any longer. All I’ll ever be to them now is Darth Vader’s daughter.” Star Wars: Bloodline
Her name had always come with the weight of her status.She was the adopted daughter of Alderaan’s Queen and Senator. Her mother had named Leia heir to the Aldraanian throne on the same day the adoption was finalized. Leia Organa was a child orphaned by war on the day she was born. She breathed for the first time as the Grand Republic shuttered its last. She had never known the names of her birth parents but her Papa always spoke well of her birth mother. She had once asked about her birth father but her dad had gotten a lost look in his eyes and simply said “I didn’t know him well” before swiftly changing the subject. She had never brought it up again. Truly she had wanted for nothing while growing up. Her parents were always loving and attentive to her and her desires. She had never felt the need to know who she was before she was Leia Organa because Leia Organa was all she could remember being.
Both of her parents had been on Alderaan when the Death Star struck. Her Mama had comm’d her a few days before and said she loved her and that she wished her all the best on her diplomatic mission. Papa had only just returned to Alderaan when it had been destroyed. She had known in her bones even though he had not told her he had made it to the planet. Her bones had tingled with the knowledge that he was planet-side when the Empire had blown them to oblivion. She'd had the breath torn from her lungs as she was forced to watch the explosion. She didn’t think she would ever breathe again and for an instant she had been okay with that. It would mean she would get to see her mama and papa again. She would ask her mother to sing her the old lullaby that had lulled her to sleep so many years ago. But then against her own desires her chest heaved until air entered her lungs. It seemed her lasting desire to fight had outweighed her desire to stop existing.
The Empire had miscalculated when they destroyed Alderaan. They had taken a misstep on two fronts. They thought the show of force would bring the rebelling planets to heel and it did for some but for most it further solidified their allegiance to the Rebellion. New recruits had flocked in droves to the cause and for once the Rebellion was doing better than it had ever done before. They had the death star plans and there was hope for the first time in ages. The other misstep was in underestimating what the destruction of Alderaan would do to Leia. They had thought it would break her, make her weak, or foolish. Instead it made her angry but she had long ago learned how to make her anger an assest instead of a liability. They had taken her home, her family, and her people. They had left her only with the cause. The cause being that tunneled vision desire to see the Empire crumble apart. It was as the light from the explosion faded away she made a promise that she would tear everything they had built down and burn it to ash.
The Emperor had been a figure to hate and fear all her life and she had done so in equal measure. It was the kind of hate and fear though that one would have of things that are fundamentally against what is believed to be right and true. She feared the Emperor the way prey fear predators. The fear did not dictate her life all the time but it was something that guided her actions always. She hated the Emperor because he was a monument to all that she and her family stood against.
Vader, though, Vader was referred to as the Fist of Empire to most and Palpatine’s rabid dog to the brave and foolish. Vader was the one who had tortured her for days trying every trick he knew to get her to break. Breaking would have been so easy especially with all that she was forced to endure. Breaking would have been acceptable and expected. Leia Organa had never quite been what people expected and so she had resisted until both Tarkin and Vader grew desperate enough to employ one last tactic. They destroyed her home while she stood prisoner inside the weapon of its destruction. It was his hand that had forced her to remain still when she had instinctively gone for Tarkin. It had been Vader who had blackmailed Lando into betraying the only friend he'd ever had. Vader had taken Han away from her. He had given him to Jaba like Han’s life was meaningless. He’d restrained her again watching to see if she would break as he froze the man she had just openly admitted to loving. She had felt the contempt roll off his dark figure the moment the word love had breached her lips. She had known in that instant that Vader viewed love as weakness. Weaknesses could be exploited and she supposed he had done just that. He had captured them to lure Luke into a trap. He had exploited the love Luke had for his friends. Luke had fallen for the trap Vader had so expertly set. In doing so, Vader had fallen into a trap himself. He had once again underestimated Leia Organa. She knew a secret. She knew how to turn love into hate.
Oh, how she hated him. Hated him for the shell Luke had become after Bespin. The way he seemed to draw into himself as if he couldn’t stand the sun. Her funny, bright, and curious friend had been a shining light dimmed to a dusky twilight. She hated him to the very core of her being because she loved everything he had so diligently tried to destroy. She took the love she held for her parents, for the home she had known, the people she had felt honored to represent, and she channeled it into hatred. The hatred sustained her. Life in the rebellion was not for the faint of heart especially as she was part of High Command. There were not enough standard hours in a day to do all that must be done and yet she worked until the tasks were finished. She had always been focused on the cause but there had always been distractions. She had worried about the safety of her people, her parents, Han, and Luke. Vader had stolen and ravaged all of them. That was his mistake. He had taken away her distractions and in doing so she was left with only the overwhelming desire to watch him and his ilk fall and burn to oblivion. Her love had given her purpose but her hatred, towards that which had to destroy all that had harmed those she loved, had given her a drive she had never known.
Perhaps that’s why when Luke revealed the truth on Endor she shunned it to the back of her mind. There was always something else that needed her attention. There were things that needed to be fixed because Vader and his Empire had existed. Luke had been a brother to her long before the truth had been revealed to either of them. He was a calm rock on a turbulent ocean and she was a breath of common sense when his idealism got the best of him. He was not like her though. Twins they might be but they were fundamentally different. Luke had seen the worst of galaxy and had chosen to meet it with acceptance and love. Leia could not do the same. She gave her love and loyalty to those who deserved it because love can become weakness. Instead she had chosen to reflect back at the world its own darkness and hatred as a way to make things right. She was too far into her life before she realized the danger in trying to douse fire with fire, and to rid the world of the Empire’s filth by obliterating it from existence. She did not know who was right in their approach. Their New Republic still fell to the hands of tyranny. Her brother had seen his life work destroyed and spat upon by his own flesh and blood. They had faced the world their father had helped make and had tried to forge a path through the debris only to find they had fallen short.
That was why the truth stung because as she felt across the distance her husband die by the hand of her son she knew. She knew that for all her determination to be known as Leia Organa. She could no longer deny her birthright. Luke, she knew, was all that Anakin might have been in a different world. But her? She was who Vader could have been. She finally understood how things could become so twisted that a good man would choose to be a monster. As she sank into a chair and felt the force trill a sad tune at the loss of Han and Ben’s betrayal she knew. Luke was Anakin Skywalker’s son but she was Vader’s daughter and the First Order would fall by her hand even if it meant ridding everything she had ever tried to achieve from the galaxy. Ben, like her father before him, had made things simple. He had destroyed her distractions and she knew what to do when that happened. She knew how to turn her love into hate.
A/N Sorry if there are any mistakes I'm rushing this. I will try to clean it up later. Let me know what you think!