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There is an almost reverent hush on the Death Star as Alderaan is blown to dust. A few technicians gasp in awe. Even Tarkin is left silent for a moment. Vader involuntarily tightens his grip on the Princess’s shoulder, feeling the psychic backlash of 3 billion premature deaths hit him through the Force.
Leia notices none of this, because only the automatic locking of her knees and Vader’s gloved hand on her shoulder keeps her from falling to the ground.
She thinks—Aldera City, the snow-capped mountains, the shiny jeweled beaches she played on, the girls who nervously handed her flowers on the day Leia was officially declared Heir, that palace cook who would give her sweets when she was a girl—
She thinks—Mama, Papa—
Leia only remembers bits and pieces about the days after Alderaan’s destruction. She met Luke. She met Han and Chewie. She watched Obi-Wan Kenobi sacrifice himself for their escape. The Death Star was destroyed. And she worked, she worked and the Rebellion had to run, and at some point she thinks Mon Mothma might have drugged her caf so that she would go to sleep.
After the escape, after the Death Star is destroyed, after, she will not even think about cutting her hair. In Alderaanian culture, when one suffers a great loss, one is expected to cut their braids. Wear red. Go into seclusion, light candles and pray to the Gods, and only return when They give Their consent.
She sees others survivors do it. The hair of an Alderaanian woman is sacred, and it is a great sacrifice to cut it. But it is an appropriate sacrifice, for a great loss.
She sees other Alderaanian women do it. For the rest of the war, every new short-haired woman she sees around base gives her pause.
But Leia never thinks of doing it. Mourning like an Alderaanian is not possible for her. She cannot go into seclusion, cannot deny herself life and society, as would be proper. She cannot ignore the suffering of the galaxy. She must live for what remains of her people. She is the last Princess of Alderaan, the last member of House Organa. She knows she must show them that something still remains, that not all is lost. Win the war, win justice and peace for those who survive. If she let herself drown in her grief, the grief for her murdered family, for her murdered people, Leia knows that she may never come up for air again.
She does not cut her hair. Five years of war, of survival and sacrifice, and she does not do it. If any Alderaanian diaspora ever has something critical to say about it, she never hears it.
Even after the war is won, there is no time to stop. No time for mourning, no time for regret. She gets pregnant three months after Endor. She’s elected to the Senate of the New Republic a year later, Han holding Ben and Luke smiling at her as she takes the oath of office.
Leia thinks of cutting her hair then. But she doesn't want to explain herself, explain the traditions of her culture, traditions she knows will likely be lost in a few generations. She doesn't want to be pitied. And most of all, she doesn't want her grief to appear performative—as some sort of political stunt.
Eventually, her past is broadcast to the galaxy, and the press decry her as the daughter of Vader. Her dreams of Chancellorship die with the memory of a nightmare she had thought was done haunting her. Leia loses many friends that day, and the Alderaanian diaspora demands she give up her title. And she does.
Leia and Han decide to let her son go to her brother, and in the end they all leave her, husband, son and brother alike. She sheds all the titles of her past and becomes General Organa for the final time. And she does not cut her hair.
Leia never truly mourns Alderaan. She has no time for it. From the day Alderaan is destroyed to the day she dies, it is crisis after crisis, disaster after disaster. For the rest of her life, Leia Organa tries to hold the galaxy together with her bare hands, and she almost succeeds.
Leia never mourns Alderaan.
(Leia mourns Alderaan every day for the rest of her life.)