As threatened! A small piece of whimsical fanfic, taking a look at
Leia's powers and where they come from.
Hope I spelt all names properly! Let me know how you like it.

This takes places pre-ANH.

Zee.
***********


All characters belong to Lucasfilm Ltd etc. Me no making profits from
this or seeking to offend the Exalted Ones. Me only bored. Story mine,
though, and I can bite.


"Prism"
by Z.B.

Bail Organa studied Kenobi carefully, but not discreetly. He had been
nervous around the Jedi once, always wondering what they were
thinking, and in particular about him. That was when he was only a
young prince; since then he had grown and had seen the order crumble
from forgetting the power that being had over the Force. He was simply
aware of their abilities now, no longer intimidated.

Kenobi's face said nothing, apart from the story Bail already knew,
that was inscribed in the grey of his eyes. "It's been such a long
time, hasn't it?" he said.

"On Tattooine, perhaps," Bail replied. "To me, it feels like
yesterday."

"You've been a busy man."

"Yes." Then, "Someone has to be."

He smiled and it annoyed Bail, because he knew what he was about to
say. "You're afraid I *will* get busy."

"It's nice to know the mind tricks still work." He looked away. Bail
hadn't meant it that way, but it was too late.

"No need to read your mind," Kenobi said, fingering the edge of his
sleeve. He left it at that.

"Vader is one man. The emperor's puppet," he continued. "The alliance
that's coming together will take care of him. Once he is gone, Vader
will be powerless. We don't need those children."

"They won't be always be children." Kenobi straightened. "Even if what
you said was true --" he lifted his hand to stop Bail from protesting
"-- they cannot be denied who they are. What they have is too
important. If it is lost, all is lost."

Bail ignored the implications of Kenobi's words, the children grown,
grappling with their own inheritance and the legacy of thousands of
years. Would they break? "How is Luke?" he asked.

"Growing," he smiled. "A fine boy, and very good with things
mechanical. Very much his father's son." Bail almost asked how he kept
the shivers away. He had never understood how Kenobi could separate
Anakin and Vader so easily, because one had come from the other. He
had a feeling there were things that Obi-Wan had not told him. Guilt?
And why should he not bear responsibility? He had failed in his
teaching. The Jedi had failed. He tried to push the thought away;
Kenobi was right, it was only fear. It was making him angry. "And
Leia?"

"Growing, too," Bail said. "In a hurry." He smiled at a memory he
decided to keep private. "She could be a senator within four years."

"Sixteen?" Kenobi said. "Isn't that a little young?"

"Her mother was a queen at a younger age. I believe she takes after
her." Bail started towards the steps going down to the gardens. "She
has been sitting at the council meetings with me for two years now.
And she always has something to say!" He chuckled. "She comes more
prepared than most of the ministers. She has gift for learning,
understanding. Knowing people. That's a great asset for a politician."

"I have a feeling you would like to keep her to yourself."

"I have raised her as my daughter. I love her as my daughter."

"You have reproached me what you call 'my ambitions.' May I return the
favour?"

Bail stopped. The crunching of the gravel resonated in his ears
painfully. Such a lovely end to the day, flowers glowing with the
sunset, their perfumes thick like sleep, and here they were plotting
entire lives over which they had no right. The only thing he would
ever regret imposing on Leia was responsibilities. Decisions were
never that, only throwing the dice. "Her mother would have wanted it
this way," he finally said.

They heard laughter and recognised it as Leia's. They followed its
sound, clear and flowing like water, along the tall hedges of the
path. Or Bail followed -- Kenobi was drawn, as if to an apparition.
They found her sitting in the garden playing with Winter and her pet;
Leia had smeared her sweet paste on her cheeks and the small animal
was busy licking it off. The more Winter told her to be careful and
hold on to it, the more Leia laughed, and the closer to freedom the
animal got, wriggling as it was between her fingers.

"She looks so much like her," Kenobi said. "So much..."

There were always more questions to be asked, especially to Jedi
knights who believed they knew what was best to know and not to know.
This one particular question Bail wanted to ask, however, had nothing
to do with the fate of the galaxy and was inappropriate between them.
"Sometimes I think she knows," he said instead.

Kenobi looked at him. "What could she know?"

"The darkness into which she was born."

*****************

They let her have dinner with Winter and ate theirs in Bail's study,
where they had to discuss the secret political alliance Bail was
organising. He told Kenobi of the information he had received
recently, which was often enough to bring many to the alliance.
Strange things were happening in the Outer Rim, beyond the asteroid
belt; energy tests, such as those conducted to build weapons, whose
wave readings ranked with that of three stardestroyers firing
together. Bail's agents knew for a fact that only one had ever passed
through the belt, followed by numerous cargo ships. What worried him
was that his agents had been unable to find more information about
those tests: the Emperor's new project did not even bear a code name.
No records could be found of funds moving anywhere but to their
designated places, according to this year's budget. The Emperor was
moving them directly above the head of the Senate -- whose functions
were already  curtailed a little further everyday. It was obvious to
him that the Emperor was seeking to rid himself of even the pretence
of democracy.

"Active rebellion," Bail said, "is our only chance."

"A civil war is rarely that," Kenobi replied. "Many worlds find it
difficult to agree in the Senate chambers. How can they get on outside
of them?"

"This is where I come in. I'm not a warrior, we both know that.
Aldeeran is a peaceful planet who hasn't been to war in over five
hundred years. That is our strength. We are trusted. *I* am trusted.
What we are seeking at the moment is a firm political alliance, within
which we will function as we would in the Senate. Through elections.
Each planet which joins us will take care of particular sector, along
specific lines." He paused. "We could use you. A Jedi master --"

"A Jedi master put them in this situation," Kenobi cut him off. "Let
your alliance take care of the empire. My task and Yoda's is Vader."

"And the children."

"And the children," he agreed. He rose. "I thank you for keeping me
informed, but it is time."

Bail stared at him for a long moment, a little confused. "It's almost
midnight. Leia will be asleep."

"I know."

**********************

The doors of Leia's room were old and heavy and usually creaked when
they opened, but they moved silently under Kenobi's hands. He had
asked Bail to remain in his office; he had expected him to be worried
but he had clearly felt the king's anxiety, even if the emotion had
been quickly suppressed. No, he thought. I have not come to disappear
with her, but I need to know. He should have come sooner, and he
wasn't sure that it wasn't cowardice that had kept him away. But there
had been some difficult years.

Kenobi adjusted his sight to the darkness, and began to see the books
and the toys neatly arranged along the shelves, the piles of
electronic pads on her desk and her computer. There were prints of the
Imperial fleet on the wall, and a map of the Republic. Above her bed
was the painting of her mother's palace he had rescued many years ago.
He wondered if she knew of Naboo, and what Bail had told her.

He approached her bed. She was hardly making a sound as she slept.
With a breath he parted the curtains behind him and watched her, her
skin pale like Alderaan's moon in the starlight. He had to stop
himself from touching her, touching the dream that she was, the
remains of her mother in the soft angle of her jaw and her eyes, in
her dark hair so carefully braided. He extended his hand over her face
in an invisible caress. If Amidala had consented to the reading when
the twins were born, there would be no need for this. Train them in
the Force, she had said, and he will feel them in the Force. Let them
be what he was once...
He closed his eyes and steadied his heart, feeling first the surface
of her body, then the warmth underneath. He followed her blood and
seeped through her limbs, until he was completely within her, and she
was completely within him. He let go of himself.

It was how he had suspected. The Force within her was very strong but
inanimate, as if it did not know it was there or what it was; in Luke,
it had pulsed under his own. He probed further, gently, to see where
her powers breathed - stumbled into the images awake within her and he
realised Bail had been right, because they were of her mother, of
separation, of confusion, of fear, of hope. He felt his own soul
tremble  at the feel of a memory of love, powerful and absolute, that
wrapped everything tightly and kept the rest hidden. But it recognised
his presence and, before he could move away, penetrated the mirror
memories in him and unravelled itself. The pain, the anger, the
knowledge that did not know itself, lashed out through her small frame
before it reached for her consciousness. Kenobi gagged in surprise at
the sudden awakening, the fierce wave of the Force that struck at him
as if it had teeth. He opened his eyes to find Leia staring at him,
teeth clenched, fingers tearing at her sheets silently, body feverish.

He pressed his palm to her forehead to take it all in and let it out
through the other, and dimly heard something shatter and the dripping
of water. He went straight into her eyes, pushed back the
memory-feelings, grasped the edges of the darkness and smoothed them.
He let his love cover her, close her eyelids and erase this nightmare.
She relaxed under his touch and the murmur of her name, until the
Force was still under skin, unaware as it had been when he had first
touched it.

Kenobi turned away from her then, shaken by her power and the feelings
that gave it life. He had been a fool to choose to see only Amidala in
her: she was of Anakin Skywalker perhaps even more than Luke. The
Force in her brother had its source in his body, in his breath and in
his blood, which was why his potential was so great. But Leia felt the
Force differently, not from within like Luke but from without. The
aura even Bail had felt, that promised to make her into a great
leader, that attracted that of other and revealed them to her, was
special indeed. It came from the inexplicable world just beneath and
above life, from the core of what constituted the light and the dark
side of the Force, which tied people together on a level deeper to the
physical, which made them wondrous beings rather than dead matter.
Leia had the power of *being* and of *feeling* that had made Anakin
such a good man once.

And such an evil one now.

He looked at her and almost smiled. If she was not a child of the
Jedi, her strength of spirit would be astounding. He felt a
determination in her, a boundless courage that came from her
knowledge, something easy to call faith when she didn't recognise it
as such. There was pride in equal measure to the wilfulness - a
dangerous, wasteful thing for her, the dark side to the light, the
anger to the love. Perhaps her mother's discipline and sense of duty
would be enough to keep her safe. Perhaps she would feel a love strong
enough to balance the anger, if she let herself. He closed the
curtains and left.

**********************

Bail didn't move from his paperwork when Kenobi returned to his
office. He did not even speak. "I must leave now," he said.

"Why do you still act as if you had the Jedi council behind you?" Bail
returned. "As if you knew better?"

"Only when it comes to Jedi matters, Bail."

"And what have you decided on this Jedi matter?"

"I never came to take her away," he said softly.

"Does she not have it?" he asked.

"She does, but not like the boy. It is the boy we need. You were
right," he added. "She does belong here. She can do great things
here."

Bail sighed. "I have not been a friend to you, Obi-Wan. I'm sorry."

"I do not ask you to be. I'm happy to find Leia so loved. It's giving
her something she needs more than you can tell. Much more."

"Must you leave now?"

"Oh yes," Kenobi said, mock-seriously. "The moisture season is about
to begin on Tattooine and I must take care of my little plot." They
laughed together.

************************

Bail winced at the sound the doors made when he opened them, but found
he didn't have to worry. Leia was up and stood by her window, pressing
her face against the glass, as he used to when he slept in this room
and wanted to see the stars better.

"Leia?" He put his hand on her neck, possessively, to remind himself
of what Kenobi often made him doubt. He *was* her father. "Is
something wrong, my love?"

"I had a dream," she said. "Kind of bad, kind of good."

"Let's get you back in bed, and you can tell me about it."

She looked at him then, with a little smile. "You are so obvious,
Father."

"That's because what you need is so obvious, dear." He tucked her in
and kissed her. "Now tell me."

She thought for a moment. This child, he told himself, is sometimes
too serious for her own good. "I don't remember much. It was just - a
lot of images, like something you remember suddenly when you're
thinking of something else. I saw my mother." She stopped.

"What is it, Leia?"

"I remembered her dying. I can't now, but I did in the dream." She
scrubbed her eyes; Bail knew she was trying not to cry, because she
was always trying not to cry. She shrugged. "I'm sad, but I don't know
why. I can't remember."

"Perhaps you can, deep down. And it's all right to be sad, especially
with me. You know that, don't you?"

"I don't like being sad," she said grouchily.

"You don't often get a choice."

"That's why I don't like it."

He pinched her nose and smiled at her noisy protests. "You said there
was something good about your dream. What was it?"

"There was a man there," she said. "And he made everything okay. My
mother knew him, and he helped her. He helped me."

Bail squeezed her hand. "Are you all right, then?" She nodded. "If the
man doesn't come next time, *I* will help you." He kissed her
goodnight.

It was on his way out that he stepped on the shreds of the vase he had
bought Leia the last time he had been on Coruscant. There were dozens
of pieces scattered around the carpet, along with the flowers. He
glanced at Leia. He was certain that she would have told him if she
had broken it, or picked up the pieces if she had not wanted to.
Kenobi, he thought. What have you found in here that you have not told
me? But he didn't need him to know anything about Leia. About his
daughter. He could just wait and see.

She would do well.

THE END.

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