Their Lady Adyé [Star Wars]

Escape From the Princesses

It was beautiful in the Palace of Theed. Neva had been looking forward to this Gala for days.

The last few weeks had been nothing but hard work and sadness. There was so much still to do to recover from the aftermath of the Invasion. What time wasn't taken up by committees and councils was taken up by funerals.

But today was intended for joy. Joy and peace. The parade had been spectacular. It had been a perfect day. The sun had been shining almost blindingly bright, and there hadn't been a sad face to be found. And now, as the brilliant sun was setting and the moons beginning to rise, it was time for the Gala. Neva smiled. She had missed smiling. There had been very little in the way of smiling for a long time.

Even before the Invasion, things had been grimly tense in the Capitol. The blockade had been making life on Naboo very difficult indeed. Food had been growing scarce and the people had been growing ever more tense and fearful. And then the Trade Federation had begun landing their troops. Naboo had no military, only their security force, and it had all happened too quickly for any sort of defense to be mounted. No one had seen it coming. The blockade had been understood to be posturing only on the part of the Trade Federation. No one had conceived that they would escalate to outright invasion. Theed had been one of the first cities to fall. Starting in Naboo's Capitol, the people had been rounded up and locked away in camps so the Federation could ensure the total control over the Nabooian population.

Neva would be happy if she never had to think about those camps again. Her stomach still clenched with dread at the thought of them and at night she still woke in a cold sweat at the memories. Week after long week of not knowing anything: her family had been in Fara, and her aunt, being out in the city, had been sent to a different camp than those in the Palace.

And on top of that the Queen and some of her inner circle had disappeared. No matter that she tried to convince herself that the Trade Federation wouldn't dare, she couldn't ignore the terror that the worst had happened. And neither could those around her. Whispers had spread like wildfire that the Queen had been the first casualty of the Invasion, followed closely by her closest advisors. The princesses and the rest of the Council were bound to be next, those whispers threatened.

It had been awful beyond anything Neva could have imagined. It was only after some of Amidala's closest advisors had rejoined the rest of them that Neva and others from the Palace learned that the Queen had escaped the planet with two Jedi to protect her.

Not long after that, the Federation started taking top officials within the Nabooian government away for one reason or another with no warning, including the princesses. The whispers had started up again, then. When the spindly battle droids had come for her, Neva had been sure she was about to die.

Though one of the older princesses, Neva had also been the newest, though the Trade Federation officials hadn't known that. They had persuaded and cajoled her to record a message pleading for the Queen to make contact with them or to come home. Ultimately, it was more like she'd been forcefully bribed, confronted with the promise of better rations for some of her fellow prisoners, an offer Neva hadn't been able to refuse. Many of them had barely eaten in days if they'd received any food at all. But Neva had known as soon as they told her what to say that whatever she recorded would be nothing more than bait in a trap for Amidala. She had hoped that the Queen would be clever enough to see through the attempt...no matter the truth to Neva's scripted words. She heard later that day, when she was finally returned to the camp, that she hadn't been the only one made to record a similar transmission. One of the other, younger princesses and Governor Bibble had also given into the same deal she had. That evening had been the first time many of them within the camp, Neva included, had a true meal in days.