Edges of the World

Chapter 22

"Her Majesty the Queen will see you now."

Leia's heart jumped, and seemed to lodge itself somewhere in her throat, leaving just a radiating tingle of excitement in her chest.

It took all of her restraint to keep herself from running into her mother's throne room, up the dias, and into her arms.

She wanted to bury herself in her mother's arms as she always desired when upset. To rest her head against her mother's pulmonodes, and let their golden glow wash away the rest of the world around her. No, she needed to bury herself in her mother's arms, and trust in her ability to hug all of Leia's troubles away.

Instead she walked into the familiar room slowly, and with all the poise her tutors and aunts had done their best to drill into her. It was almost painful to look at her mother, see her sitting there whole and healthy as if the past few nightmarish months had never happened. To dull the pain Leia forced herself to focus not on her mother herself, but the two golden thrones on the dias instead. The empty one her father would have occupied had he been on-world, and her mother's own.

The throne Leia had always believed would one day be hers, that she had focused her entire life around being worthy of one day occupying.

Whenever Leia did allow herself to look at the woman seated on the golden throne, she saw that her mother had schooled her face into an impassive mask. She had always envied her mother's ability to be so put together and perfect when in public. Leia had tried and failed to learn how to mirror her mother in this, but had found much like bookkeeping and accounting, it was a part of the queenly duties she could not fully master.

Leia felt her fingers and toes start to feel slightly numb, her body entering something of a state of shock. The part of her that was still in denial about her parents' deaths was comforted, but the increasingly large part of her that had come to accept that she would never see them again was sending out alarms.

She knew, rationally, that when she returned to her dimension she'd have to start the grieving process all over again. That in terms of her own mental health and ability to cope with being orphaned at the young age of 19, this could not be healthy.

Most of her did not care.

How many nights had she dreamed of this? Of simply seeing her mother again, of talking with her? How many mornings had she woken only to have to discover all over again that her mama and papa were gone? A terrible truth she could never accept.

Breha watched her, and Leia wished her mother wasn't quite so good at being queen, that her mask would slip just a little and let Leia see what she was truly thinking. She bowed, sure that in the eyes of those present her bow was all wrong for the situation. After all as far as they knew she was not a Crown Princess well past her Day of Demand, one who had long since fulfilled all three of her Challenges and had been properly inducted into the role of Heir. A child come before her parent. Yet in all the ways that actually mattered she was.

Breha nodded, and Leia buzzed with excitement as she recognized that particular nod as an acceptance of her greeting, of her mother informally claiming her as her child here before her court. There was an echoing murmur from those gathered, surprise at both the greeting and its acceptance.

Understanding dawned, and Leia realized that all of this, the formal setting, use of of the ceremonial throne room, it had all been for her benefit, had all been staged so her mother could claim her.

Then she spoke, spoke in that voice Leia could never forget. The voice that had sung her Mirrorbright every night, easing her to sleep until she finally reached an age where she felt she could take on the monsters that lingered in the dark. The voice that had taught her so much of what it meant to be a leader, to balance life and duty, had told her stories and scolded her when she misbehaved and praised her when she triumphed. The voice that represented everything that was home. The voice of her mother.