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“This is stupid.”
A fourteen year old Leia Organa, princess and heir to the throne of Alderaan, crosses her arms and frowns.
Mon Mothma, seated across from her at the dining table in her Coruscant estate, raises her eyebrows. “What’s stupid?”
“History! All of it!” She lifts a hand to swipe the holopad in front of them, sending glowing text scrolling past, too fast to read. “Why should I care what planets joined the Republic when. It’s just a bunch of numbers. They don’t mean anything.”
Mon places a finger on the holopad to hold it in place. “You may think so, but historical knowledge is crucial in the life of a politician.”
She is not sure at that moment if she is telling the truth. Years ago, she would have meant it wholeheartedly, lovingly, breathlessly. But now, with all that she has seen…
What good is history if all your knowledge affords you is the understanding that it will be repeated? If artifacts can be commodities, then can knowledge itself be similarly corrupted? If the Empire can touch even the sacred institution of education, what is there left to believe in?
Leia sighs, indignant, shaking Mon out of her thoughts. “Father told me you would teach me cool, important stuff.”
“And you don’t believe the history of our galaxy important enough.”
She shakes her head.
“What were you hoping to learn, then?”
She shrugs. “I want to learn how to use a blaster, but I didn’t think you would teach me that.”
Mon chuckles. “You were right about that. I don’t believe I’ve ever used one.”
Leia’s eyes narrow in thought. “Well… I mean… I’m going to be a senator one day.”
“If that is the path you choose.”
She ignores the comment and continues. “Maybe soon. If my father decides to step down.”
Mon nods. Leia is spending more time on Coruscant now for a reason, after all.
“Which means I’ll be a lot like you. When you were a teen.”
She cracks a slight smile. “I suppose you will be.”
All at once, the girl’s air of confidence and defiance drains away as she looks up at Mon, blue hologram reflecting in her eyes. “What will it be like?”
Mon sighs. It’s been years since she began her term as a wide-eyed newlywed senator at the age of sixteen, in over her head. And so much has changed since then.
“Difficult. It will be very difficult.”
Leia furrows her eyebrows. “But it will be worth it, right? To make the galaxy a better place?”
That is the question, isn’t it? The very one that Mon herself is attempting to answer.
“Of course,” she responds.
“And this history stuff will really help?” Leia eyes her, skeptical.
“Of course.”
She gives an exaggerated eye roll, as if she’s trying to make up for her need to mature so quickly with an enhanced performance of teenagerhood. It’s been a long time, but Mon remembers the feeling.
“But… we do not have to discuss your dreaded dates. There are other ways to learn history.”
Leia crosses her arms again, leaning back ever so slightly in her chair. “Okay.”
“In fact, you’re right. The dates don’t really matter. At least, not the way they are presented.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” she scrolls through the holopad to find a suitable place on the timeline of Republic history. “Look here. The time of the Eridian War. You see six star systems and fifteen planets join the Republic in the span of only four years. Why is that?”
She scrunches her nose in thought. “Because there was a war?”
“Exactly. Those systems and planets needed protection.” Mon taps the holographic image to zoom into the star systems in question. “The Herra-1 system was being attacked for the first time in many, many years and did not have the infrastructure to fight back on its own. So the people of the system agreed to join the Republic in exchange for use of its military.”
“Wasn’t Eridia also part of the Republic?”
Mon winces. “Yes, well…”
Leia rests her chin on her hand, thinking. “So you’re saying that when planets are being attacked, they’ll band together to protect themselves.”
“Something like that.”
“Even if it means running into the arms of the very people attacking them.”
Mon’s chest tightens. “This instance is not an anomaly, to say the least.”
Leia looks her in the eyes, intense and calculating. It is hard to believe she is barely a year older than her own daughter in a moment like this. “How can you make sure that doesn’t happen?”
Mon smiles, an instinctual response to questions that probe too close to home. “I’m pleased to see you’re beginning to understand the joys of history.”
Her expression does not change. “That’s what’s happening now, isn’t it? In the wake of Aldhani. The Empire is closing its fist and most people are just going along with it because—“
“Now Princess Organa,” Mon interrupts, deadly serious. “Let’s not say anything we’ll regret.”
“Oh.” She looks down. “I just thought… You’re friends with my—I mean… never mind. You’re right.”
Mon smiles again—this time a bit more genuine, though it is so hard for her to tell these days.
She takes a deep breath. While she greatly dislikes the idea of anyone else, and especially someone so young, knowing so much of her secret, this is Bail’s daughter she’s talking to. And the soon-to-be senator of Alderaan, likely. Mon will have to reveal herself soon enough, whether she likes it or not.
She leans in, just slightly, lowering her voice. “Your father and I both voted against the new ISB provisions, it’s true.”
Leia looks up at her again, eyes wide, like she understood every little thing Mon just implied. She nods.
“Is this what it’s like to be a senator?” she asks, leaning in further and lowering her own voice. “Afraid you’re being watched, even in your own home?”
Mon chuckles, hoping her bitterness does not register, and raises her voice to what it was before. “Yes, it is a difficult job. You will not always see the success you wish for. But I think… you will be well-suited to it, Princess Organa.”
Leia looks at Mon in quiet shock for a moment, taking everything in, then grins. “Even if I don’t like history?”
“You still don’t like it? Even with how I taught it?”
She tilts her head. “I guess I didn’t mind it as much as the numbers stuff.”
“Good. I hope we can discuss galactic history more in-depth another time.”
She nods. “I think I would like that.”
Before Mon can say anything else, footsteps sound from the other end of the room. She looks up to see her husband walking towards the dining table.
“I forgot you had company today,” he smirks, then turns toward Leia and nods. “Your highness.”
She nods back. “Hi Mr. Fertha.”
“Now, Leia, if you want to learn blaster technique, my husband is really the one you should ask.” Mon nods up at him as he leans against a wall panel.
He chuckles. “I haven’t used a blaster in years; I don’t think I’d be much help. My hobbies are focused on older weapons nowadays. They’re more… sophisticated, don’t you think?”
Leia shrugs. “I’m more interested in the practical applications.”
He flashes a smile. “Oh please, you’re too pretty to need to learn how to use a blaster anyways.”
Leia’s smile drops and her eyes narrow. Mon notes, not for the first time, that the girl has a rage in her, always hiding just beneath the surface.
Perrin puts up his hands in surrender. “I take it back. That was rude of me. Your highness.”
Mon stifles a laugh.
“Well,” he stands up straight again. “I’m off to have lunch with some friends.”
“What friends?” Mon asks, despite the feeling that she knows the answer.
“Just some people you don’t like, don’t think too hard about it.”
She rolls her eyes, pushing down the unproductive anger that rises in her chest.
Even knowing it helps her cover that her husband rubs elbows with the Empire’s biggest supporters doesn’t stop it from making her blood boil. Year after year, the reminder of how little so many on Coruscant, so many of her peers, even think about the evils being done on other worlds…
“Have fun,” she says.
“I appreciate the support.”
“Don’t tell them I say hello.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He gives a quick grin to Mon and a nod at Leia, then turns on his heel and exits the room.
They hear his footsteps fade away as he walks out the door. Leia turns to Mon, anger still in her eyes.
“What’s his problem?”
Mon smiles, sucking in through her teeth. “He’s just not used to meeting people quite like you, that’s all.”
“He shouldn’t say that to anybody,” she mutters, more to herself than to Mon.
“Yes, well…”
There’s no excuse she can give, only the platitude that she’ll get used to it, in time, as a senator. She’ll get used to much worse, in fact. But that does not seem like what the princess wants to hear.
Mon catches Leia glancing back at the now-hibernating holopad.
“Can you teach me more about Republic history? The interesting stuff. The useful stuff.” Leia presses a button and the holopad turns on again, displaying its exhaustive list of dates and events in glowing blue.
Mon glances at the hologram. “Your father will be here to pick you up soon, but how about we schedule another session?”
Leia nods, ambition in her eyes. “I think a future senator should have an understanding of how the galaxy has changed, and what we can do to change it in the future.”
Mon feels the corner of her lip curl upward, in a rare involuntary smile. “Of course. I’m glad I could show you that.”
“I’ll be back on Coruscant in a month, I think.”
“I’m sure your father will let me know.” Mon pauses, thinking. “And you know what, with your newfound interest in galactic history… you seem like a hands-on learner, Your Highness.”
She laughs. “I’ve heard that before.”
“In that case, next time you visit… there’s an antiques shop I would love to show you.”