Amidala, Mother of Heroes
Queen Padmé Naberrie Amidala of the Naboo stood before her dressing mirror in the dark, alone, in her nightgown. Well, not quite alone. Beneath the gentle brush of cloth over her belly, the living bulge was slowly beginning to show. She had managed to keep it closely hidden, even from her handmaidens. But soon her growing womanhood would be impossible to hide from anyone. She knew she must be far from her homeplanet when that time came, she would not let her people bear this burden. In the soft gloom of twilight, she leaned forward and looked at herself in the glass, staring imploringly into her own eyes as if looking for some answer the universe could not give. Her face, still youthful, was damp as she brushed her hand against her cheek. She almost didn't recognize herself without the make-up, the ice white mask of royalty. Only the fiery brown eyes looking back at her reassured her she was looking at her own face, and not at Sabé's. A cruel joke that, to share an identity with someone for so long, that you no longer knew which was your face, and which was theirs. She looked hard at the girl in the mirror, her eyes narrowing in thought as she analyzed the image in the glass. She saw only a girl in a white nightdress, feet cold on the bare floor. Take away the pretty clothes, the make-up, the attendants, and she was just the bumbling, yet self-assured peasant girl the Naboo had elected Queen thirteen years ago. Yet even then, at fourteen, she had been old. She called herself a girl only because her body still looked young. And even that was soon to pass. With gentle curiosity, she put her small hands to her burgeoning belly, and touched the warmth of the life growing there. She could hear the heartbeats in her own ears, and could nearly feel the touch of the womb water against her own skin. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on the silent murmurings of her children, her *two* children. How she knew that, she couldn't tell, but she did. She could only sense the barest glimmerings of conscience as they brushed against her own, but there were two distinct beings within her, and they would only become all the more distinct as they grew. She looked up back to the mirror and turned sideways, bursting into quiet laughter at how her figure was changing, and would change, with carrying twins. A boy and a girl she hoped. A soft smile touched her lips as she tried to guess what they would look like. Two children. Hers, ... Anakin's. Queen Padmé Naberrie Amidala of the Naboo leaned against her dressing mirror in the dark, and wept.
END
Journal Of The Whills
