Anidala Week 2025: Day 3 (Everything Goes Sideways/Role Reversal AU)
Padmé Amidala Naberrie had always believed in stars. She believed in stories too - tales spun by her mother in the dusky kitchens of their modest estate on Naboo. Stories of queens and warrior-priestesses, of lost Jedi temples and forgotten prophecies, of girls born under ill-fated moons who defied the storm.
She was no queen then. Just a senator’s daughter, all wide eyes and restless heart. Even as a child, Padmé was the sort to slip from elaborate dinners and courtly lectures, vanishing into the city streets to help patch storm-torn roofs or bring water to homes when the rivers ran too high. The palace called her reckless. Her father called her headstrong. Her mother, long before she passed, had called her brave.
And so she served. At thirteen she volunteered with Naboo’s relief corps during a season of floods, tending the sick with hands far too small to hold so much grief. At fourteen she delivered speeches before the Assembly, calling for reparations for the Outer Rim settlers no one else cared to remember. She threw herself at every battle she was allowed, dreaming not of ballrooms but of stars and of the war-torn, impossible galaxy beyond them.
She would have stayed on Naboo forever, had it not been for the Jedi.
Qui-Gon Jinn came to Theed for a matter of trade - or at least that was what he told the Council. There were stirrings in the Force, strange fractures in fate’s tapestry and he followed them like a wolf chasing smoke.
He found her in the palace’s south atrium, speaking to a group of healers about transport routes for the northern sick.
A hum. A shiver in the Force, ancient and aching.
When Padmé turned toward him, it felt like the stars themselves shifted in their cradle.
“You feel it too,” she murmured, though she did not know what she meant.
Qui-Gon’s throat worked. “Who are you?”
“Padmé Naberrie,” she said. “Daughter of Ruwee. I’m nobody.”
Within days, he’d convinced her family, an impossible task by all rights. The Naberries were protective, bound by tradition. No child of theirs had ever become a Jedi. The Council itself refused at first, citing her age, her attachment to her homeworld, the unorthodox method.
But Qui-Gon was not a man who bent easily. He brought them an artifact. An ancient, weathered sketch rendered by the Jedi seers of old. The child of prophecy, the one who would bring balance to the Force. The face in the drawing was soft, feminine, marked by eyes like twin stars and a necklace shaped like a crescent moon.
“She was born for the stars,” Qui-Gon told them. “The Force speaks through her.”
And in the end, in fear or in hope, they let her go.
She trained on the move, because the Council never fully approved. It was unorthodox. Dangerous, even. But Qui-Gon would have it no other way. She learned saber stances in the cargo bays of old freighters, Force meditation in open fields beneath alien moons.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon’s senior apprentice, grumbled at first. He thought her too reckless, too headstrong, too willing to chase the impossible. But in time, she charmed even him.
“Maker help me,” he’d sigh when she talked her way into yet another diplomatic squabble or leapt without thinking. “She’s worse than you, Master.”
And Qui-Gon would smile, weary but proud. “She’s better.”
Their little mismatched family - a tired, stubborn Master, an exasperated older brother figure and a teenage girl made of starlight and ruin - drifted through the galaxy, chasing skirmishes and lost artifacts, bringing peace where they could.
Padmé loved them fiercely.
And then there was Alderaan.
It was a routine mission, escorting a prince to Tatooine to negotiate with the Hutts. Padmé didn’t care for nobility but the war made for strange alliances and this child was apparently important enough for the Jedi to intervene.
She found him in the palace gardens.
Nine years old. Blond curls mussed from the wind. A face too solemn for his years. He was sitting cross-legged beneath a tree, staring at the stars beyond the dusky sky.
“You’re not from here,” he said, without looking up.
Padmé raised a brow. “Neither are you, technically.”
He glanced at her then. And the world cracked a little.
“I saw you,” the boy said softly. “In a dream. You had a crown made of light and the stars listened to you.”
She should have laughed. Should have brushed it off as a child’s fancy.
But something in his gaze - a storm, a knowing - made her chest ache.
“I’m Padmé,” she offered, crouching beside him. “And you must be the Prince.”
He smiled, crooked and shy. “I’m Anakin.”
“Prince Anakin of Alderaan,” she teased.
“I’m just Ani,” he said. “And I think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”
Padmé laughed then, a startled, real thing. The boy’s cheeks flushed crimson but he grinned anyway.
She reached out and ruffled his hair. “Careful, Ani. The galaxy’s a dangerous place for princes with big hearts.”
He beamed up at her. “It’s okay. You’ll protect me.”
And stars help her, she already wanted to.
And there you go: a little snippet of my Role Reversal Anidala AU! I’ve always loved the concept of Jedi!Padmé trained by Qui-Gon so I had to write it with Padmé as the main character at the heart of the story. In this AU, Anakin is the prince of Alderaan and Breha’s step-brother. I’ll be expanding this into full scenes and posting the whole thing properly on my AO3 sometime soon (along with prompts from the whole week) but for now, here’s a tiny tease because the prompts this year are too interesting not to join in. Hope you enjoy this dreamy little start!
