A huge thank you to all of the amazing creators who participated in our Padme Week celebration! We loved each and every post and are so grateful to share in your love for Padme Amidala. Padme Week was a huge success and we will look forward to hosting more events in the future! An extra special thank you and kudos to everyone who made something for each day. <3
Here’s a list of everyone who participated and their posts! Please support these wonderful folks and their creations:
@padmeskyguy (Force Sensitive Padme; Alternate Ships; Queenhood; Dark Side Padme; Other Jobs; Padme Lives; Creator’s Choice)
@agalaxynotsofaraway (Force Sensitive Padme; Alternate Ships; Queenhood; Dark Side Padme; Other Jobs)
@padawanlost (Force Sensitive Padme; Alternate Ships; Queenhood; Dark Side Padme; Other Jobs; Padme Lives; Creator’s Choice)
Chapter One of a Padme Lives AU. Posted for Padme Defence Squad Day 6: Padme Lives AUs. Read it on AO3 here.
Many thanks to @bruceclarkd for her beta work!
In her nightmares, she was always running.
This time, she was running through the palace in Theed, her every step echoing through the pristine marble halls.
She was being weighed down by her heavy ceremonial gown and headdress, and she knew her pursuer was gaining on her, his rasping breath also echoing down the hall behind her.
As quickly as she could, she altered her course, ducking around a pillar and into another hall, darting into the throne room and slamming the heavy durasteel doors behind her.
She paused to catch her breath, pressing a hand to her chest as she pressed her other thumb to the arm of the throne, pulling out a hidden cache of blasters.
And then she heard his laugh.
The eerie, unmistakable, gloating cackle of the Emperor, the man who had once been her friend, her ally, her mentor.
Her betrayer.
The man who stood before her now with glowing bloodshot yellow eyes bore a scant resemblance to the man who had once been Senator Sheev Palpatine, from one of Naboo’s finest families and a stalwart in the Galactic Republic.
He continued to laugh, as a shadow behind him, in the corner, turned down her heavy black cloak to reveal stunning red hair and hatred in her cat-like green eyes.
Who is she? She wondered, as the woman stepped out from behind Palpatine (she couldn’t think of him as anything but), and ignited a lightsaber, revealing a purple blade.
Padmé Lucía Amidala Naberrie Skywalker awoke, gasping for breath.
Aigualí, ajuda me, si us plau, she prayed. Shiraya, protegeme, si us plau.
Would she ever be able to stop running from the man who had deemed himself Emperor and his cronies, even in her dreams?
Pressing a hand to her chest, much like she had in her dream, she attempted to slow her breathing and calm down. She got out of bed, quietly tiptoeing to the room next door to check on her precious children.
She had no way of knowing that the green eyed shadow she had seen in her nightmare had not even been born yet; that the shadow cast over her life would chase her newborn babies into adulthood.
For now, she only knew that the lives of her children and her own life were in danger.
It seemed that the nightmare had not affected her children; Luke and Leia slept soundly in their shared crib, their little chests moving up and down with each soft breath. They slept snugly together, their tiny hands reaching for one another, as close in sleep as they were in life and in her womb.
Padme took another deep breath, and looking once more upon the children for which she almost lost her life, she steeled herself and went back to bed.
They would move again in the morning. There was nothing she could do in the middle of the night.
She rose early, and started preparing breakfast. Her sleep had been untroubled by another nightmare, but she slept restlessly, tossing and turning in her sheets, waking often and mumbling various prayers to Aigualí and Shiraya, whether they deigned to listen to her prayers or not.
The HoloNet provided a droning background noise while she waited for the water in her kettle to boil. She knew that everything was being censored, that Palpatine--the Emperor--’s minions controlled everything now, but yet she continued to watch, waiting for something, anything to give her a sliver of hope, of real news.
Her heart ached for what the Republic had become, been transformed into by her former mentor.
And then suddenly she looked up at the screen, to see the soulless, masked eyes of Darth Vader, and a cold chill ran through her. She felt sick to her stomach, her every instinct and nerve cried out in agony. She remained rooted to the spot, scarcely breathing or even hearing what the newscaster was saying.
She was shaking, and cold all over, and her vision tunneled.
No, she thought. No. I will not give in to this.
She was seeing stars, and truly couldn’t hear anything. She sank to her knees on the small kitchen floor, her chair clattering behind her.
Her shaking became more violent, and her head sank down to her knees. She was desperately clawing for breath, shaking each time, and fighting to remain conscious of herself.
And then she heard a baby’s cry, and then another.
My little guardian angels, she thought. The lights of my life. My children have saved me again.
She couldn’t bear to think about what might have happened on Mustafar if she hadn’t been fighting to stay alive for the child she thought she carried. Labor had been the worst physical agony of her life, coupled with her husband’s betrayal. But that had receded into the background and her tears of pain had turned to tears of joy when she held her babies in her arms for the first time. Twins had been an unexpected surprise, yet Padme could not imagine her life without both of her children now.
Still trembling, she slowly rose from her position on the floor, and wiped the tears streaking down her face away with the sleeve of her robe, hurrying off to calm and nurse her babies, turning off the HoloNet on the way to their room.
She had to resign herself to knowing that the man who once was her beloved husband was now an agent of evil, and truly more machine than man. The first time she saw Darth Vader by Palpatine’s side on the HoloNet, proclaiming their new empire, she had to run to the refresher and be sick.
She was no Force sensitive, but she had known that something terrible had befallen Anakin after Mustafar.
She was right, in more ways than one.
She couldn’t imagine Anakin leashed to Palpatine’s side the way he was now, at the bidding of yet another Master. He had chafed at the yokes by which he was bound to Watto, then the Jedi, even more so after their wedding.
He had exchanged one type of slavery for another, it seemed to her. Their new Empire may have possessed a kind of absolute power and military might of which the Republic could only have dreamed, but their souls were bound to it in a way that that the Republic never demanded of its children.
She nursed her children, and vowed once more that she would not rest until she saw light return to the galaxy. There had been a shadow cast over all that she held dear, and she would not allow it to continue. She put the troubling nightmare and the twin image of what her husband had become aside, and focused on her babies.
“I will rebel for as long as I am able. For Luke and for Leia.”
Having fled for her life in the aftermath of Mustafar, Padme Amidala goes on the run with her newborn twins Luke and Leia. Watching as the man who was once her husband destroy the world at the orders of the Emperor, Padme decides she can no longer sit by and do nothing.
Leaving her children in safety with Bail Organa, Padme begins a rebellion against the fledgling Empire that will change everything and lead to a confrontation against Vader...
