Next Year in Aldera

Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?

It could never be the same.

The dishes were a hodgepodge of broken old things borrowed from the mess, the Seder plate a dining tray repurposed with large hand drawn lines.

Leia was used to the finest gold inlaid porcelain dishes, ancient dinner sets passed down through the Organa line and used only on this one special night.

As she bustled about getting the Seder ready, Leia's thoughts kept returning to how nothing about this night felt quite right.

On all other nights, we eat chameitz and matzah. Why on this night, only matzah?

She had requisitioned every non-essential droid be reprogrammed to prepare the traditional Alderaanian dishes, and almost broke down sobbing when she heard how many ingredients they could not afford, how many no longer existed.

How was she to renew the promise the ancient Alderaanians had made before the Force, the sacred covenant they held, if she could not lay out the foods that symbolized her people's ancient journey?

What did it mean when, given the size of the kitchen in the mess and the need to pump out the only rations they could afford, they could not even fully separate the chameitz from that night's meal?

On all other nights, we eat all vegetables. Why, on this night, maror?

Evaan was handling preparations for the Alderaan Flotilla to join them for the feast, arrangements for them all to gather together in one place. She had been calling Leia all week to pepper her with questions about what they might do, how to adjust to this new strange Galaxy where home was no longer a place they could return.

It truly was not fair, celebrating finding their home, the miracle of arriving there and making it their own, when it was a place they would never see again.

"One day we will build a new home," Evaan had said, when frustration and grief drove Leia to tears. "We will rebuild a new Alderaan, a new Aldera city even. We will build a station in the very place where Alderaan once was, and when that day comes we will truly be able to say "this year we're in Aldera."

Leia wished she could believe her.

She puckered her mouth tight whenever Evaan spoke of her hope for their future, trying to ignore the bitter taste of despair.

On all other nights, we don't dip even once. Why on this night do we dip twice?

Somewhere in their preparations someone suggested Leia look towards a similar ritual on Naboo, one where they celebrated the journey their ancestors had taken out of Grizzmalt and to Naboo. The Naboo believed the Force had guided them there, and much like Alderaanians had a ritual feast where they would, over the course of dinner, transform into their ancestors and renew all vows to the Force, ending the meal with a promise to return to Theed the following year.

It was incredible how similar that ritual was to the one Leia so desperately longed to retain. Hoped she would not lose even in the wake of all that had occurred.

With the aide of several Rebels who hailed from Naboo, Leia carefully substituted each missing dish with one that symbolized similar things for the Naboo, cataloging each thing that was missing, each linkage to her past that was erased.

No. Not erased, but transformed, transformed as she herself would be when the meal was in full swing and she would say "Once I was a Slave."

She was a Slave, not distant figures from the past, not people in a story she heard and repeated each year without fail, but her - as much a part of her as her commitment to Democracy or love of thunderstorms.

She reminded herself, as she fought back her tears, that the important thing was that the rituals carried on, and through them, through their connection to all that had come before, they would ensure Alderaan never truly died.

On all other nights, we eat either sitting upright or reclining. Why on this night do we all recline?

They ran out of chairs of course, had started grabbing seats from across the base. Not everyone could be off duty during the meal, but every single person with even the slightest connection to Leia's homeworld was excused from duty for the night.

It had been a headache, working out the personnel changes needed to make that possible, but Luke, and surprisingly Han, had volunteered to help. Sorting through the records, making careful notes, finding the best people to sub in so others could be where they needed to connect to their past.

To make sure the past did not die.

Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?

When the meal started, when Leia led her fellows through the familiar Order of the meal, she felt something within her relax.

Yes, her role was shifting, and yes it would never be exactly the same.

But when they got to the end,

when they hefted their final glass of wine in the air and proclaimed "Next Year in Aldera!"

She believed.