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"Leia! Lelila, I see you up there! Come down, sweet."
Leia sighed at the sound of her mother's voice. She'd expected a nurse, or maybe one of her aunts, to come drag her back to her lessons. Sending her mother after her just wasn't fair, but neither was staying inside studying on such a glorious spring day.
She clambered down the tree faster than she meant to, scraping her knee on the way. Mother was wearing a semi-formal tunic and trousers in a deep forest green, and her hair was twisted into a simple coil at the nape of her neck, so at least Leia probably hadn't forgotten about some deadly dull state occasion this time.
"Your hair is full of leaves," she said, reaching over and plucking some of them loose while Leia twitched at the ticklish feeling. "Come on, let's get you presentable. We're going to visit our guests today, remember?"
Leia followed without complaint. After all, if her mother didn't know she'd skipped her lessons, there was no reason to point it out. And she liked visiting their guests. Some of them had children near Leia's age, and it was always fun to meet offworlders.
"Welcome, Your Serene Majesty," said the woman who opened the door of the guest suite. "And Princess Leia! My Nara has been asking when you would visit again."
"Please, how many times must I ask? Call me Breha," Leia's mother murmured.
Then Nara, a gawky blue-skinned Twi'lek girl a Galactic standard year younger than Leia, came bursting out of a side room and rushed Leia away to play tri-d chess with two of the other children, leaving Leia's mother to talk with the adults.
Secretly, Leia wished she could stay. She knew their "guests" were political refugees, because she had overheard her parents talking about it. She knew that not all planets were like Alderaan, peaceful and committed to preserving freedom of speech. But that didn't tell her much about why, and she knew that if she asked, Mother would just say she was too young.
She asked anyway, as they were leaving. Mother sighed and put her arm around Leia's shoulders. "It's complicated, my Lelila, but if you are so curious, perhaps it's not too soon. Would you object terribly to more lessons? You would not be able to speak of them to anyone except me and your father, and your teacher, of course."
More lessons! Leia's heart sank. But for answers, it would be worth it. "I suppose that would be all right."
Her mother gazed down at her for a moment, with a curiously sad expression. "Well, that's settled, then," she said cheerfully. "Shall we go into town for fruit ices?"
The next time Queen Breha Organa of Alderaan held audience, the young Princess sat at her right hand, stiff and uncomfortable in a hairstyle she was afraid would collapse at any moment despite what seemed like half the hairpins in Aldera. Behind her stood her new teacher, a lanky Naboo woman with a dimpled smile and dead aim with a blaster, a woman who had once been bodyguard to a queen.
Afterwards, Leia hardly complained at all about being bored. It had been something of a revelation to her, seeing that her mother's job was more than uncomfortable hairstyles and looking regal. And if Breha felt a little sad that her daughter was growing up so soon, she told no one.
