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The trick to surviving is never to stop moving. There's a species of water-swelling predator on Kamino among the ruins that jinks and darts in the dark waters but can only breathe so long as water moves past its gills. Stop moving and die. Too many people have died already, too many friends and loved ones, even too many foes. On the first terrible day, awash in all his losses, Anakin considered joining their unhappy numbers but he could not bear the thought of his children doing the same.
He's been on the run ever since.
On the very bad days, it feels like he sold the twins, exchanging them for his freedom in awful parody of his own childhood enslavement. Bail gave him a ship, sleek and fast and untraceable. In return Anakin gave him the two most precious beings in the entire galaxy. In the days that followed, he considered death in every form, from the simple overload of his own engine, to turning himself in to this fledgling Empire for swift execution. Without Padmé, without Leia and Luke, without his home and his friends, he wasn't sure what the point of going on would be or could be. Obi-Wan was in hiding. The last time he saw Ahsoka, he'd wished her luck on her mission to Mandalore in the company of a host of clones.
Loneliness ate at him like a wasting disease until months later, on an unexpected morning, he received a message from Alderaan: no words, merely an image of two infants fast asleep with their fingers entangled in their cot. And he found his purpose again right where he'd left it all along.
Some days, purpose is all he has.
Sneaking back to Alderaan isn't easy at any time. The Organas are known by the Empire. They're too popular and powerful for the Emperor to make a move against them for now, but they are watched by the best. Anakin is better.
He reaches the palace after midnight and uses his own code to slip inside. There are guards but the ones trusted to guard the family know him and let him pass through. He's been awake for twenty-seven hours. The guest room in the family wing is free, and the bed is always comfortable. He falls into slumber as soon as his head hits the pillow.
In the morning, he hears high peals of laughter. His eyes crack open and shut again.
For one long moment the last fingers of sleep push him into a dream: they're on Naboo, where they live in a comfortable house on the Naberrie estate, and their children have grown under the doting love of their mother's family, and Anakin has never felt so happy and accepted in his entire life. An entire life's memories slot themselves into place: the death of the Emperor, Anakin's break with the Order, Padmé showing him the little home for the first time as she holds Leia and he holds Luke; a dozen conversations with his new father-in-law and a hundred meals with his new mother-in-law; so much quiet, commonplace joy that his heart spills over.
Another noise disturbs the dream: the sounds of small feet racing down a tiled hallway. He wakes. This is Alderaan. Padmé isn't here. The children are.
He lets himself into the hallway and down to the playroom. The door is ajar and the kids are talking in that fashion where they've been told to be quiet therefore they whisper loudly. They've grown again since the last time he visited. For a few minutes he stands out of sight and watches. Leia's hair is longer, captured in a new intricate braid, and she's carrying herself more seriously. Luke has lost the soft lisp he's had since he was two and his hands are much more assured on the toy he's playing with.
He doesn't have a favorite, he can't, but Luke has always been slightly more attuned to him, and he notices first. "Anakin!" He drops his toy and runs to the door. Anakin immediately grabs him and picks him up.
"Hi," he says, giving him a hug.
"When did you get in?" Leia asks. She's cooler and more collected than she was, watching him with wary curiosity as he hugs Luke again and sets him down.
"Late last night." He waits, watching her back until she breaks and runs to him for a hug of her own. "I missed you, too."
Luke asks, "How long are you staying?"
"Not long." The words hurt but they're true. Alderaan is safe only as long as no one recognizes him. A day or two every several months is all he'll risk of their lives. He could dwell on how unfair that is or he could appreciate the time. He takes a seat on the playroom carpet. "What've you got?"
Luke is the more easily distracted. He launches into a description of his new toy ship. Anakin loves the details the kid comes up with and helps him when he stumbles over pronouncing 'aileron' and 'conjunctive.' Leia returns her attention to her own toy, a little droid that flits through the air. Her eyes keep returning to Anakin.
Bail finds them in the playroom half an hour later. "Welcome," he says in a warm voice that betrays no surprise or worry. Anakin returns the trust by getting to his feet and taking his hand.
"I got in late. Thank you for the codes."
"You're always welcome to visit. Have you eaten?"
"Completely forgot." Luke's head is close and Anakin gives his hair a tousle. "I learned a lot about Luke's new ship."
"He's a wonder with all his ships." Luke grinned. Behind him, Leia carefully didn't make an annoyed face but Anakin could tell it was a struggle for her.
"Leia," he says, "why don't you show your dad the new trick I taught you?"
Pride flashes in her eyes as she turns to her own toys, holds out her hand, then carefully pulls a doll up into her palm with the Force. She clutches it with a satisfied smile.
"That's fantastic," Bail tells her, pride on his own face and a new worry under his words. Anakin has spent the last seven years knowing that as much as he loves the kids, Bail and Breha love them beyond words. They want the twins to learn how to use their gifts but the price for discovery would be fatal for all of them.
Anakin follows Bail to the dining room where plenty of food is already prepared. Over caf and toast he catches up with him on events galaxy-shattering and tiny. Leia lost two more teeth, and Luke lost three. The Senate failed to pass a resolution to stop the persecution of those with the Force by Imperial troopers. Bail has another contact for Anakin to meet with on Nar Shaddaa.
Beside them at the table, the kids have grabbed snacks and are munching happily. Leia is starting to recognize the wider issues in the galaxy that her parents are dealing with even if she doesn't yet understand them, and she listens in. Luke's still innocent for however long that will last and cares more about telling his sister a story he's come up with about the little toy pilot of his ship.
It's not a happy little house on Naboo. The only mother they've ever known is the regal monarch of this planet. Breha adores them utterly and fears for their future in a galaxy where children like them are snapped up by the Empire for terrible purpose or murdered outright. But as he listens to them chatter to each other, he knows for now they are safe and happy, and that's enough purpose for him to return soon to his own work far away from them.
"Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly," he tells them. Leia's calm and composed, sitting to his left with her eyes closed. Luke's on his right trying not to squirm. He'd rather be playing, not sitting patiently learning to meditate. After another minute, Luke falls into the same breathing rhythm as his sister but he's poised to jump up from his seat any second.
"You were the same way," Obi-Wan tells him during a rare communication later that evening. "And they're the same age you were back then."
"It's a bad age to learn to train. Everyone else started when they were babies." He shakes his head. "If I'd kept them with me, I could have been training them." But the reasons why that was never an option crowd into the silences around his words and he sees the tender sorrow in his old master's eyes even over hologram.
"You made the best choice you could for them. Now you must make more choices. If you intend to show them how to use their powers, you must commit to the action. Half-trained Jedi are dangerous to everyone, especially themselves."
But he doesn't have the ability to train them fully, not when he only sees them once every several months. He has these moments with them, bright stars in the dark space of his own life, and he wants to spend the brief hours with hugs and games and listening to all their stories about their school and their friends and this gentle life they're leading. All the things he wishes he could have shared with his mom he now has to take in snatches with his own children. He doesn't want to fill the rare visits with dull lessons about the Force.
He hears his own bitterness in his reply: "Then maybe they shouldn't be trained at all."
"Perhaps. Maybe I shouldn't have trained you, and sent you and your mother to live somewhere else in safety. You may have grown up safer and happier."
Anakin listens to the kids chatting to each other in the next room. They are safe and happy, and they'd never have existed if he had remained on Tatooine. As if reading his thoughts, Obi-Wan says, "The Force has plans for us all, even if we never see the shape of its ultimate plan."
Rebellion has been brewing in the corners and shadows of this new Empire, and Anakin can't help but get involved. He commands a ship of his own with a crew of about twenty depending on when Rex and Wolffe are aboard versus leading their own teams. His crew calls him 'Kin Doral' but mainly they call him 'Sir.' All of them believe he's a Jedi but only the clones know for certain.
Even Rex doesn't know the truth about the twins.
Bail's ship rendezvoused with them two rotations ago and Anakin has spent the rare, wonderful time training them. Luke is stronger with the Force; Leia has much better control over her powers. He enjoys learning. She's driven to succeed. It's odd to watch them together and odder still to pick out which pieces of their personalities have been built from which parent. Both are more thoughtful and calm than he can ever remember being and that's entirely Bail and Breha's influence. Luke has a peacemaking streak shot through with an obstinance that would have made Padmé proud while Leia spikes with a righteous anger Anakin has only ever met the equal of in his shaving mirror.
"Ready position," he tells them now. Bokken sticks in hand, they face off while he counts out positions. Neither can be trusted with a lightsaber yet even though at eleven they should be readying for their padawan trials and heading to Ilium.
He wonders at that other life while the twins move stiffly through their motions in this one. Padmé would have refused to send them to the Temple as toddlers. The Order wouldn't have insisted but they would have been concerned knowing Anakin would be training them anyway. He can picture the arguments.
Obi-Wan doesn't argue. He's visited the children himself over the years with all the affection of a grandfather, keeping his worries for Anakin's ears only. They're growing powerful. They must keep their secret at all costs, even if it means sacrificing the people they love. And they won't, couldn't. If the choice ever comes between their parents' safety and their own, Anakin already knows what choice either would make no matter how many times they're told.
Leia makes a wild swing and hits Luke on the arm, hard. Instantly she drops her stick and goes to his side. "I'm sorry!"
"It's okay," he says, clutching the injury until Anakin rolls up his sleeve to check for a break.
"Move your fingers." Luke does so. Anakin carefully twists his wrist. "Does this hurt?"
"No."
"You'll have a bruise but I think you'll be all right." He doesn't like this next part but it could save Luke's life someday. "You need to block better. Reach out with the Force and try to anticipate where your enemy's blade will go before they know it."
"Leia's not my enemy."
"No. If she was, you'd be running around with one arm like me." He wiggles his mechanical hand until Luke laughs and Leia gives a grudging smile.
When the twins are thirteen, Leia disappears.
Bail contacts him, terror visible in his eyes through the hologram while his voice remains perfectly calm to tell him their daughter has been missing for two days. She was traveling in a shuttle with a trusted pilot when the tracking signal vanished.
"We scoured the sector. There's no sign of debris." A blessing and a curse all in one. Space is big and the most painstaking search could miss the tiny remnants after an explosion. "Luke believes she's all right."
A shiver of relief moves down his spine. "Have they spoken?" It's risky to ask even this over a transmission but he has to know even as Bail shakes his head. The kids are learning to communicate mentally, an amazing trick Obi-Wan says he's never seen before and only heard of once. The children are miracles and one of the miracles is missing.
"How do we find her?" Bail asks and he loses the careful composure, his question a bleak prayer to the one person he thinks will be able to fix this.
It kills him to reply, "I don't know."
He was on Alderaan not a month ago and shouldn't risk another visit, not with the issues in the Gaulus Sector coming to a boil. An hour ago he thought that was why Bail was contacting him but other resistance cells are the last thing on Anakin's mind as he leaves his second-in-command Tylin to deal with things while he takes a shuttle and heads directly towards Luke.
Luke meets him at a landing site well away from the palace. He's wearing a plain traveler's robe disguising his light hair. The usual kind smile that usually brightens his face is drawn into pain and worry as he embraces Anakin. He's getting taller again even in the short time since Anakin last visited, and his voice is warbling in a crack that will leave him in deeper tones for the rest of his life.
"Do your parents know you're here?"
Luke hesitates. "They've already forbidden me to go. Mother's terrified. Father put out the word that Leia's gone to see some of our relatives."
"Why weren't you together?"
"We don't do everything together," Luke says in a soft rebuke. "She was on a mission. I didn't want to go along." The rebuke turns inward but there's no need. If they'd been together, both would be lost and Anakin would have even more trouble thinking past the throat-clenching terror trying to overtake him now.
"Your parents are going to kill me for this and they'll probably forbid me from ever seeing the two of you again. But I need your help to find her."
"It's fine," Luke says, boarding the ship. "I left a note in case I didn't come back. I've always wondered what it would be like to be grounded until I was in university."
They head to Leia's last known position first. They have no leads which makes it as good a place as any to start. Luke doesn't sense her anywhere near where the tracking beacon stopped.
"She's not in pain?" Anakin asks, afraid of the answer.
Luke shakes his head. "Would I know?"
"Your grandmother was kidnapped and hurt badly. I knew." He doesn't like thinking about it, about what happened after. There are lines no Jedi should cross but the same lines apply to everyone else. He's not proud of what he did and he doesn't want to give that story up to the kids yet. They have enough reasons to be disappointed in the man who gave them to their loving parents. "I didn't know when Obi-Wan pretended to be dead."
"How could you not know?"
That opens a question Anakin has been wondering about. "You sense Leia, what she's thinking, how she's feeling." Another nod. "How much do you sense from me?"
"A lot." His face is guarded but Luke still hasn't learned the politician tricks Leia takes to naturally. "You're afraid right now. You're angry a lot." None of these are hard to figure out. "You love us both so much it hurts whenever you have to go again."
"Of course I do. I'll always be grateful for the life your parents gave you but I'll always be heartbroken I couldn't."
"We know," Luke says. "We're grateful to all three of you. If we'd grown up with you, we'd be in constant danger, and we never would have had Mother and Father." He pauses, thinking. "You're worried that Leia was taken because someone knows she's your daughter but isn't it more likely she was taken because they do know she's the Alderaanian princess? Who would kidnap her?"
Anakin leans back in his chair but a name pops to the forefront of his mind. "Your parents are definitely going to kill me."
Luke is a little better at subterfuge than Anakin feared. He keeps his mouth closed while Anakin goes through his tentative conversation with Hondo.
"A politician's daughter missing? I would have heard about that," Hondo says, rubbing his fingers together. "The random would be very profitable. Too risky, though."
Anakin doesn't glance at Luke despite Hondo's continued interest in the youth. "And who is your young friend?"
"My bodyguard," Anakin says, folding his arms while Hondo laughs. "You haven't heard anything?"
The old pirate taps his chin. "Maybe I have. There's something going on in Naps Fral Cluster. Very hush hush." He gives Anakin a sly look. "My friend, I will tell you this for free, and I never tell anyone anything for free: those lowlife scum would do anything. They'd pay a good price to capture a Jedi. You are very rare these days."
"Thanks." He sighs, expecting a betrayal but perhaps Hondo has gone soft, or else he knows the trouble Anakin will cost him would be more than the payout is worth. He might think otherwise if he figures out Luke but Anakin doesn't give him that chance. "I owe you one."
"Yes. You do." He nods at Luke. "Bodyguard, when you want a better job, come see me. You won't live long around him."
"I'll keep that in mind."
The Nap Fral Cluster is known for the slavers who operate in the fringes. Luke would have been safer staying with Hondo and safest back home on Alderaan. Hondo's coordinates weren't specific but Anakin finds the gathering place with Luke's help. Leia's here. All they have to do is fight through a thousand pirates and slavers to get to her.
He puts the ship into orbit before they land and turns to his son. "I need you to listen closely. Do not engage any of them. If you have to use your blaster, set it to kill because they will be trying to kill you. If things get bad, run. Fly the shuttle back to Alderaan and tell your parents everything. I'll find a way back. I won't leave here without Leia."
"Neither will I."
"Luke, I know you're brave, but I don't need you to be brave. I need you to be safe." He watches the conflicting emotions on Luke's face, and he wonders if his own were always spread so thickly for everyone to see.
"I trust you to keep me safe," Luke says. "Leia's scared and she's angry. I need to find her before she does something rash."
A new concern grows. "Can you communicate with her from here?"
"Kind of. I know what she's thinking. We're getting good with our powers. She's ready to kill her captors."
"Tell her not to kill anyone. Think loudly," he adds, still not understanding how his children can do this.
Luke says, "You just told me to kill them."
"I know what I told you." He brings the ship into atmosphere and when he gets the hail, he offers the docking codes Hondo sold him for most of the credits Luke had. He closes his eyes. "How much have we told you about the Dark Side?"
"Not much."
Anakin gets his own blaster ready. He has his lightsaber; he hopes he won't need it or he's going to have even more trouble. "Fear and anger are fast roads to power. The price for that power is your soul." He remembers his own angers, his all-consuming fears. He could have fallen. One step to the wrong side, one bad day too many, and instead of fighting Palpatine, he'd be there now at his side.
He looks at Luke again. He'd burn down the galaxy for his kids; the harder path is not doing so.
"Leia has the power to kill her enemies with a thought. You both do. But using that power would destroy who she is." He flexed his metal hand. "We have to save her from the person she could become."
Luke doesn't understand, not really, and Anakin is glad. He's been raised in as much peace and happiness as Bail and Breha could provide. He's never gone hungry, never lost someone he loves, never been hurt in any way that leaves scars inside or out. Before they step out, Anakin presses a quick kiss to his hair. Luke gives him an embarrassed grin.
"For luck," Anakin says, and they make their way through the other lowlifes, exuding their own aura of trouble no one wants to borrow today, and towards where Leia is being held.
Was being held. His only warning is when Luke takes a half-stumble back.
"How much power?" he asks.
"What did she do?"
Luke pushes ahead of him, sure of their destination, but they're stopped outside the rough door of a building that looks like it used to be a ship back during the war. Two guards with more arms than brains refuse them entrance.
"Invitation only," one hisses.
"We were invited," Anakin says, pushing them with the Force. "You're going to let us in."
The Force doesn't always work. "Not until the auction is concluded."
"The girl?" Anakin asks, prodding for information. His lightsaber shifts under his robe. The blaster would be neater but he's positive he can kill them both with the plasma blade and there is no room for mistakes now.
The second guard says, "She's royalty from a rich planet. Highest bidder can name their price for the ransom." He glances at Anakin and Luke's clothing, clearly, and correctly, assuming they don't have that kind of money. "Or marry her off to your own man and inherit everything."
"I heard she's a child."
The guard shrugs, and that's the tipping point. Anger spikes through him, flowing with a power he's tried not to touch, not since it nearly consumed it the day his children were born. In an instant Anakin's lightsaber is out and the first guard is dead. Before he has pivoted to take out the other, Luke's blaster has already killed him.
A chill moves through him, and the tempting power dissipates in the wake of worry. Leia is in danger but Luke may be in a worse danger. The boy's face is pale but determined. "Are you all right?"
Luke looks at him, drawing a shaky breath. The same dark energy that filled Anakin a moment ago is nowhere near him. He gives Anakin a tight smile. "Father said not to tell you about this but there was an assassin who tried to kill me and Leia a year ago. We killed him first."
In a moment, the first person Anakin killed personally flashes behind his eyes: a mission with Obi-Wan gone badly, and his lightsaber slicing through another living being meant his own life and that of his master would continue. He hates that Luke and Leia have already run that same mental calculus. He wonders if Bail worried for their souls as much as he does right now. He needs to have that talk about the Dark Side with them both once they get out of here.
Anakin turns to the door and uses his lightsaber to slash the controls. It slides open as he douses the blade and grabs his blaster. "Hurry."
But when they dash inside, they're not met with any of the various horrors Anakin has tried not to imagine since he first heard the news Leia had been kidnapped. Instead, she's standing in front of a crowd of pirates and worse. Her arms are folded, her mouth tight in a short, disappointed frown whose power even Anakin feels here at the back of the room. Her expression promises low marks and a stern talking to later after class. He watches hulking gangsters three times his size shuffle their feet as Leia turns her gaze on them.
Her eyes flicker to her brother then back to her audience. "And what are we going to do?"
There are mutters in six different languages, all of them vague and embarrassed. Leia says, "I didn't hear you."
"Fight the Empire instead of ourselves," they said, more or less in unison in all their various tongues while she gave them a nod of approval.
"I'll be in contact. And I will expect to see some improvement when I come to inspect." She marches off the platform and directly back while a respectful aisle blooms in the crowd in front of her.
"We're here to rescue you," Luke says, glancing at her new friends.
"You're late," she says to Anakin. "We need to go."
"Do we? It sounds like you just brought half the pirate crews in the galaxy into the Rebellion."
"I did," she says, striding out the door with barely a look at the bodies at the doorway. "But it won't last."
Luke says, "She did this to the assassin's crew."
"We're not supposed to tell Anakin about the assassin."
"You were kidnapped!"
"I had it under control."
Behind them in the gathering room, there's a low mutter that's starting to grow. Whatever hold Leia somehow managed to cast over them is about to fade. Anakin grabs each twin by an arm and runs for it.
They make it back to the ship and into the air before they're followed, and they're only shot at a few times before he yanks the controls to slam them into hyperspace. Leia and Luke are continuing their bickering behind him as Anakin takes in a large breath in relief.
He lets their argument peter out before he turns. "Lesson time." He's met with a matched set of annoyed faces. "We need to talk about the Dark Side."
Fortunately, Bail and Breha are too relieved and happy to see Leia safe to be angry with Anakin and Luke when they walk down the landing ramp with her. Almost. "We'll talk about this later," Breha tells Luke before hugging him again. As loving as her gaze is, that's going to be a hard discussion for him.
Anakin's hard discussion is going to be sooner. "Dinner?" Bail offers.
The private dining room is separate from the usual family space. They have extra security dampeners in here and use it for planning they cannot trust even in the rest of their home. Anakin closes the door for him, engaging the screens. "Let me say goodbye to the kids before you forbid me to see them ever again."
Bail shakes his head, not in denial but fondness. "I never could. They love you and they need you in their lives."
"I had to find her."
"I know. You went where I couldn't, found Leia and brought her home by means I didn't have. My job is to use words but I have none to express how grateful I am to you for everything you have ever done for my family, including bringing our daughter home."
"Even when it put Luke in danger?"
"Was that his idea or yours?" He already knows the answer; he's testing Anakin.
Anakin has never liked tests. He folds his arms. "Luke's ideas aren't what you need to be worrying about. Leia managed to mind control an entire room of criminals who wanted to bid on her as a ransom tool."
"Oh, she's doing that again." At Anakin's shocked expression, he waves his hand. "It's usually her tutors. I'd meant to bring it up to you the next time you visited. You'll need to teach her to control that power better."
"You're going to let me train them more?"
"The galaxy is dangerous. They are moving through it with great potential but even those who don't know who they truly are see them as valuable targets. Yes, I want you to train them to defend themselves and use their gifts for good purpose rather than getting out of music lessons. They could have no better teacher."
"I'm trying to train them when I can."
"You could do so every day if you stayed."
The words snap into focus, striking him like a snapped band. "I can't. I'm wanted by the Empire."
"Anakin Skywalker is, yes. Breha and I have been laying the groundwork for a while." He hands Anakin something.
"A chain code?"
"Forged by the best. New name, new background, untraceable. You're a teacher, originally from Corellia, lately hired on by the palace to tutor the Prince and Princess in poetry. That is, if you want that life."
"Poetry?"
Bail recites, "Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force." He smiles. "I'm sure you can think of other poems to teach them. Fortunately for us, the new tutor we've hired is also gifted at teaching self-defense, including swordplay, and he comes with impeccable references we've spent quite some effort getting into place."
It's tempting. "I have a ship and crew out there. The resistance is growing. You're providing funding and we need that but they need leaders."
"Yes, and I expect you'll join your crew often enough as they ask for your help. The Rebellion has many leaders. Luke and Leia have us. Besides, this won't be for long. The twins are already studying for their university admittance exams." There's a quiet sorrow under his pride. From the day he brought them home to meet their mother, he's known they will someday fly off into the stars to chase their destinies.
Anakin expected to be politely asked to leave, not offered a chance to raise the kids alongside their parents, to see them every day and train them in their powers. He's not sure how they'll take this change in their lives; it's one thing for him to drop by in a whirlwind visit of fun and quite another to have to listen to him when it's time to go for a run, or go to sleep.
"How long have you planned this?"
"Years. My friend, you have never been happier than when you are here with the children, and they grow like flowers every time you come around. We were worried initially about your safety and theirs, and we still are, but living in fear is what the Empire wants. Every lesson you give them, every moment you spend with them, we are fighting the despair the Emperor wishes to bestow." He places a hand on Anakin's arm. "You have been on the run since the Republic fell. It's time to come home."
The key to surviving is knowing when to stop running.
He returns to his ship to begin the handover and lay tracks for his cover story. Only a few select and trusted friends know where he's really going.
Rex doesn't like hearing that Anakin is going to ground somewhere. "You're safer in the sky."
"None of us will be safe until the Emperor is gone. The Organas are desperate for a bodyguard they can trust. I can only imagine what they went through while Leia was missing."
"That had to be hard on them." Rex gives Anakin a kind smile and his eyes say more than his words. He's growing old quickly but he's never been foolish. "I think Senator Amidala would be proud of you for agreeing to help."
"Rex."
"No one else knows. I'm sure. Take care of those kids."
His throat fills with emotions that don't need names. "I'll do my best. And I'll be back soon."
"I know you will."
Happiness comes in strange guises under the Empire. For some, it means eking out a quiet life between the stars and for others it means grasping mouthfuls of delight whenever the Imperial boot is stepping elsewhere. The wealthy and powerful have always taken more than their own share, although some of those have learned to share themselves, gifting out pieces of joy like candies pressed into hungry hands.
Anyone who knows the Organa family can see they've been blessed here on this lovely green and blue world. Even the poorest citizen lives on Alderaan in plenty, thanks to the efforts of the Queen and her consort, and their children are growing into that same generosity like bright flowers under their watchful care. Every day the two of them can be seen in the company of their schoolmates studying scrupulously how to serve their people. When they return to the palace, they study even harder under the watchful eye of their home tutor, who takes them away frequently on educational trips. They always return smiling, aglow with new discovery and fired with important purpose.
They're going to do great things one day.