The Empire told stories about Leia Organa.

They started off simple: calling her a simple-minded fool. Leia Organa was a silly little princess throwing a tantrum over her planet being punished for its treachery. Pretty but petty, and ever so vain, Leia Organa was just a spoiled little twit spitting rage for not being given the power she wanted and having a fit over being caught at a crime.

Those stories didn’t work very well.

The repeated success of such a tiny and ragtag group of rebels proved that there were clever and cunning folk behind the Rebellion. For a silly twit, Leia Organa slipped out of too many traps, stole too much information and too many supplies, shot down too many Imperial forces, and succeeded in her command again and again.

It didn’t reflect well against the Empire that a spoiled princess kept foiling them over and over again, even if sometimes by the thinnest of hairs.

And everyone who’d ever met Leia Organa could never believe them, and Leia Organa had met many people as she negotiated and coerced more and more allies for the Rebellion, and many people before when she pretended to exist under the Empire’s rule. I met Leia Organa once, traders and governors and senators many others across the galaxy would say, and she’s nothing like they say she is.

Leia Organa is pretty and a princess, but her eyes are sharp and her words are sharper still, and she is made of kindness and cleverness and grief and rage. She has little patience for anyone who believes the Empire’s stories about her. Anyone who can look into her eyes and think her shallow must be blind to miss the death and hopes and dreams of an entire planet; there is nothing simple about any of the last children of Alderaan and everyone knows it - as deep down as the scream that echoed through the galaxy.

The Empire switches tactics - took them long enough - and calls the simple-minded fool and silly little princess a masterful illusion. She’s a lie, they say, and a liar. Leia Organa is a beautiful temptress, a demoness feeding on the chaos of war, a front for the Rebel cause, hungry for power and revenge and the deaths of all she can lure to her weak, pointless, useless cause. This princess who should have died is only a campaign strategy hiding under a pretty woman’s face.

Some stories say that Leia Organa is dead. She died with Alderaan; her silly support of the rebels killed her. What exists now is a sick, twisted figurehead invention of the Rebellion to gain support - a lying lie. A ghost, a demon, an undead enchantress and seductress who weaves pretty and terrible falsehoods and deceptions.

Leia Organa hears these rumors and instead of scoffing like she did at those that proclaimed her a brainless twit, she laughs. Then she scoffs. And then she goes back to work. The Empire can say what it wants, that won’t make it true that the Rebellion isn’t gaining ground. (It hurts when people believe the stories, but Leia’s scale for pain is fairly skewed now, against the hole where her heart used to be.)

A similar reaction goes through most of the Rebellion, those who don’t scoff with disgust burst into laughter and laugh until they cry. Oh yeah, Red Squadron agrees, wiping actual tears off their cheeks, that’s the princess, alright, seducing men left and right. Yep, there she is now, standing on a box and yelling like a howleroo in General Solo’s face again as he yells back. Hair frizzy from working all night and wearing Skywalker’s ugly yellow jacket again, that’s the true picture of temptation and enchantment.

Luke laughs so hard that he falls to the floor and can’t get up for fifteen minutes. (Anyone who so must as suggests it might be true in front of him quickly learns the true meaning of fear, but otherwise) Luke nearly dies because he keeping cracking up and almost hits his head on stuff, and Wedge has had to repeatedly drag him off to Medical to check if there’s something wrong with him.

(The tests keep coming up negative but Wedge doesn’t understand how anyone can find their own intragalatic Imperial reputation as a dangerous religious lunatic absolutely hilarious. There’s something in the sand on Tatooine, you mark Wedge’s words.)

Han Solo can’t believe what he’s hearing when he hears the rumors, and doesn’t even laugh. He teases Princess Leia about it, of course, but everybody quickly learns not to joke about it in his presence because suddenly the smuggler’s all you wanna repeat that, buddy? And nobody wants to have their arms torn off by a Wookie.

The Empire can tell all the stories it wants, it still loses in the end.

About twenty years later, the First Order tells stories about Leia Organa, and it’s the same old story all over again. (A son of Skywalker has fallen, the Jedi have fallen with stragglers scattered across the stars, someone building another giant super-weapon, and the Organas are fighting back against an Empire.) Demonize and dehumanize.

The only difference is that they acknowledge the existence of the Force again, saying she uses it to twist minds and hearts and souls, and they don’t call her beautiful anymore.

Leia Organa pretends to be a kindly old woman, but she’s really a cunning old crone. She’s a bitter old hag who can’t let go of rebellion, who wants to tear the galaxy apart because she wants everything but her wrinkled hands can’t handle it all. A small and sickly, but deadly and devious and dangerous and ugly witch.

And that’s not even getting started on what they say about Luke

Leia Organa just laughs, then scoffs. (There’s a pain in her chest, but it’s not important.) And then she gets back to work. She remembers when she used to be beautiful, you know.

(“Used to be,” Han says with loyal disdain, then insists, “Still.”)

These little men can talk all they want to prove what big boys they are, but she’s gone from a pretty-petty princess to a villainous temptress and fabrication to an old and terrible witch, and she’s still kicking.

Those stories didn’t work very well. 

(At least, she thinks they didn’t. She hopes so. It hurts when people believe the stories, but Leia’s scale for pain is fairly skewed now, against the hole where her heart used to be. Oh, to think that she could find them both, in the dark and distant places they’ve gone to, and bring them home.)

They’ll prove them wrong again.