Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

notbecauseofvictories:

also palpatine knew leia was anakin’s daughter from the moment she made planetfall on coruscant.

of course, was more generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter; when the threat comes—and it will come, he would not be a sith master if he could not feel the force gathering like a storm—he knows alderaan will be the tip of the spear. accordingly, he has armed himself against it. why else would palpatine have pressured bail to retire from the imperial senate, and send his beloved daughter in his place?

(children are weaknesses, children are the softest, most vulnerable place, where any blunted knife can cut. he has known this since anakin came to him, wracked with nightmares of birth and death.)

but being generally aware of bail and breha’s daughter is very different than knowing leia organa, feeling her drop like an ion bomb through the atmosphere of coruscant, so screaming-loud and shiveringly powerful through the force that palpatine stops dead. it’s been over fifteen years since he last felt that raw, unchecked, untaught power—since anakin skywalker returned to coruscant after so long away, all of nineteen and long-limbed, something animal have taken up residence under his skin. palpatine had taken one look and wanted to leash it.

and now his daughter is here.

(palpatine has been making do with such puny, stunted specimens lately. crippled things, taught in the dark by vader and then presented to him as though they were something to be proud of. but a skywalker daughter, who did not even know enough to shield herself from him—)

palpatine is patient. (he has always been patient.) he does not reach out, he makes no overture; instead he gives her his glittering planet with all its pleasures and strangeness. he even pulls his spies and guards back, to give her more room to run. aldera is hardly a backwater swill, but there is nothing in the galaxy like coruscant.

on the fifth day, the junior senators are presented to the emperor.

leia organa looks so very much like her mother, that for a moment, palpatine is back on naboo, standing before another little girl with a crown of braids. but her expression is all anakin, a badly-hidden contempt behind her eyes.

“leia organa,” emperor palpatine says, extending his hand for her to bow over. “we are gratified by your coming. may you serve us as loyally as your father has.”