Star Wars: Legacies

Leia

    "Focus Leia. Picture yourself lifting the rocks, then do it," Ahsoka instructed.
Leia pressed her eyes closed and tried even harder still, but it felt like Ahsoka was asking her to lift the entire planet. She kept searching for that piece inside herself she was supposed to find, but it just wasn't there. Her concentration broke, and she dropped to the ground, landing awkwardly on her stomach.
    "Forget it, this is impossible!" she protested, hauling herself upright. She rubbed her eyes, which were still heavy with fatigue. She'd been up all night reading through reports and drafted bills, and had barely slept at all.
    Ahsoka sighed and crossed her arms, "Leia, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. You've been stuck on this lesson for days, and you're clearly not getting the rest you need to succeed. If you're not ready to-"
    "I am ready!" Leia interrupted, scrambling to her feet. "I can do this, I know I can!"
    Ahsoka shook her head and put a hand on her padawan's shoulder. "Leia, this is the most basic form of Force training. If you can't do it, then you won't advance to the next stage of your padawanship."
    "But I can duel just as well as Luke!"
"There's more to being a Jedi than just your lightsaber. You are very powerful Leia, you have the potential to be among the best in the Order. You're holding yourself back trying to do everything all at once," Ahsoka explained gently.
    Leia's face felt hot and she avoided her master's eyes. She had the grandmaster of the entire order as her teacher, and she was still a failure. She could only imagine Ahsoka's embarrassment at having her as a padawan.
    "I-I'm sorry. What would you have me do?"
"First off, go to bed. You're clearly exhausted. Then do some meditating, maybe some light reading. We'll try again tomorrow," Ahsoka kindly explained.
    Leia nodded, but kept her eyes on the ground. She almost wished the Jedi Master would get angry and yell at her, Ahsoka's gentle understanding just made her feel worse. She gave a quick bow of respect and sulked off to her room, leaving Ahsoka in the courtyard alone.
    She didn't feel like meditating just yet, so she made her way to the sparring room, where Ezra was juking it out with a training droid.
    "Up for more of a challenge?" she asked, folding up her cloak on the bench.
The other padawan lifted his helmet and grinned, lowering his blue lightsaber. "Sure, anything beats this hunk of metal," the droid responded by zapping him in the foot before floating off.
    Leia unclipped her own saber and ignited the violet blade. She sprang at Ezra, making the predictable move of slashing sideways. She'd tried to learn her father's preferred lightsaber form, but she just didn't have the size or strength for it, so she went for a more modified, aggressive form that Obi-Wan used.
    Ezra parried easily, trying the predictable move to disarm her, but she reversed her grip slashed upward, as the two of them fell into a pattern of blocking and parrying.
    "Any idea where Luke went?" she asked, ducking a swing and jumping out of the way.
    "Reva said he went with Master Skywalker and Master Kenobi to deal with some rancors in the Stolas system," Ezra relayed, Leia's lightsaber barely clipping a lock of his blue hair. He had the more standard issue haircut for male padawans, one that Luke adamantly refused to wear, claiming it was a "crime against fashion" or something. Leia wasn't really listening.
    "He gets to have all the fun," She grumbled, reversing her grip again to throw Ezra off. She'd continued to train with her father on Naboo, but mostly just with dueling, so despite her Force skills lacking, she was very advanced with a lightsaber for having only been a padawan for less than a year.
    "Where's your master?" she asked, changing the subject.
Ezra sprang sideways and tried a different angle, beginning to show his fatigue with her nearly impenetrable defense, "Master Tano dispatched him to Kashyyyk to finish smoothing things over, he told me to stay here and study in the Library but I- gah! Didn't want to," he relayed, barely dodging another precise slash from Leia.
    She was getting tired, so she decided to end the match, easily disarming Ezra, grabbing his saber out of the air and pinning him to the floor, both blades poised at his neck crosswise, a method her father claimed he used to defeat Count Dooku, but she forfeited the "cutting off Ezra's hands" part.
    "I win," She taunted, disengaging the sabers and offering him a hand.
"That's what, 44:0?"
    Ezra scoffed and took her hand, "I'm gonna win one of these days, just you wait."
She handed him his lightsaber and grinned smugly. "I'm terrified. You better apologize to the droid and keep practicing," She suggested.
    Ezra rolled his eyes and watched her leave, picking the blinder helmet back up off the floor.
    She arrived back at her room, feeling a bit better than when she left Ahsoka. She flopped on her bed and closed her eyes, but almost immediately her comm started beeping. Groaning, she flipped it on and squinted at the notification. Mon Mothma had just called an emergency Senate meeting. She threw on one of her outfits from Naboo and rushed over to the senate building, tucking her braid up into her hairpin.
    Padme was waiting in their cubicle, listening intently to the chairman of Pantora, who was discussing mounting hostilities between worlds that supported the People's Militia, such as Pantora, Ryloth, Mon Chala, Naboo, and Alderran, and the New Separatists.
    Leia quietly joined her mother in the seat next to her, smiling in greeting.
    "These attacks cannot go unanswered!" the mon calamari senator insisted loudly.
"We've demilitarized the Republic for a reason! Meeting violence with violence only leads to war!" the senator from Shili parried.
    "If we wait, we risk allowing them to grow stronger!" the senator from Ryloth argued.
    "They've started attacking innocent worlds such as Kashyyyk! Something must be done!" the Pantoran chairman agreed.
    "How do you suggest?! We have no standing military!"
"This isn't going well," Leia whispered to Padme. Senator Amidala shook her head, "I don't want another war, Leia. But I'm beginning to fear it may not be avoidable," she whispered back. Padme pressed the controls on her pod and moved in on the senate floor to speak.
    "The chair acknowledges the senator from Naboo!"
"Senators, we must open up negotiations with these New Separatists. They left because they disagreed with demilitarization, there must be a compromise we can reach!"