Chapter Text
Luke and Leia Amidala Skywalker were born shortly after the end of the Clone Wars.
Their father had not fallen to the dark side. Their mother did not die giving birth to them.
They grew up together, in a galaxy at peace.
Count Dooku spent the rest of his life in prison, under the watchful eye of the Jedi. He was more than eager to bring his master down with them, providing the Jedi with all the evidence they needed to incriminate Palpatine and prove he had been a Sith Lord—including evidence of inhibitor chips in the heads of every clone trooper in the Grand Army of the Republic, which, when activated, would cause the clones to murder any and all Jedi. The activation order had to come from Palpatine, all but proving his plans to wipe out the Jedi.
Palpatine never regained consciousness. Whatever the Stone—or the Force—had done to him, it had been permanent. As far as most of the galaxy knew, he had died when confronted by the Jedi. They didn’t know that he had remained alive, imprisoned beneath the Jedi Temple, stuck in a never-ending coma, until his body eventually ceased to function.
With both Dooku and Palpatine out of the picture, the Clone Wars had drawn to a grinding halt. Within a year, they were all but over.
When the war was done, the Jedi High Council presented Anakin Skywalker with a choice: either leave the Jedi Order, or leave Padmé. With the only two Sith Lords in the galaxy taken care of, they had no more need for a Chosen One.
Anakin chose Padmé—already pregnant—over the Order.
With Palpatine gone, the Republic had needed a new Chancellor. Padmé had been considered for the position, but the people had needed someone they could trust. Despite her involvement in Palpatine’s downfall, a senator from his same home planet, who had recently been revealed to have been in a secret marriage with a Jedi, had seemed a poor choice at the time.
Though Padmé maintained her position in the Senate, the young couple left Coruscant for a time, taking up residence at Varykino on Naboo. That was where their children were born, and where the happiest years of their lives were spent.
Bail Organa of Alderaan took the position of Chancellor, before being followed by Forren Vuul of Murkhana. Having a former Separatist as Chancellor worried many, but Vuul’s time in office was marked by peace and prosperity, and served as a sign that many of the old wounds of the Clone Wars were beginning to heal.
Padmé was elected after Vuul, when the twins were sixteen. She vowed to make the Republic better than it had ever been before, to ensure that no tragedy like the Clone Wars ever happened again.
For as long as she—and her children, and her children’s children—lived, it didn’t.
After leaving the Jedi, Anakin had been left without a purpose, but he was quick to find another. He would help those the Jedi had been unwilling to help, and to whom the Republic far too often turned a blind eye: the slaves.
He travelled to every region of the galaxy, seeking out those in bondage, and freed them through whatever means necessary: by force or with money, with the law on his side or without it. Varykino became a home not just to the Skywalker family, but to those they helped. In time, his efforts grew; more people joined him, until his work was being done in every corner of the galaxy. Eventually, they grew large enough that the Senate could no longer ignore them (though it helped, of course, that his wife was Chancellor).
Anakin was always there, on the ground, breaking the bonds himself.
His rage, and his fear, stayed with him all of his life. But whenever it felt as if it might overwhelm, he simply remembered the twins, and it all became easier to bear.
When they were old enough, he trained his children in the ways of the Force. They forged lightsabers of their own, and for a time, both of them helped their father in his missions. They had both inherited their father’s anger and their mother’s sense of injustice, though they wielded them in different ways. Leia became her father’s liaison to the Senate, and, eventually, followed her mother into politics. Luke remained on the ground with his father, doing the work that needed to be done.
The Jedi never bothered them, though they doubtless knew of the twins’ Force-sensitivity and training. After all, the Skywalkers received regular visits from both Anakin’s former Master and Padawan (eventually a Master in her own right).
But they never came looking to take the twins away, or to berate Anakin for training them. Anakin believed it was a repayment, of sorts—a way for them to express their gratitude. Not to him, but to the twins themselves, to thank them for a deed they didn’t know they’d ever done.
When Luke and Leia were nineteen, Anakin and Padmé finally told them the full story: the story of a strange woman who, one day, had been brought to the Jedi Temple, claiming her name was Nellith, and of the brother she had loved, and the galaxy—and the father—they had both hoped to save.
Wherever they were—whatever had become of them—Anakin hoped that they knew they had succeeded.
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It was several years before Luke Skywalker was able to establish his academy.
In the years following the Empire’s end, he continued with Leia’s training. Her skill was quick to grow, and she soon constructed a lightsaber of her own. She was the first to begin Ben’s training, when he was only a toddler—lessons disguised as games, designed to teach him to control his power, and himself.
As the galaxy settled into its new peace, Luke’s attention turned, inevitably, to Palpatine. He would spend years reading over every piece of information he could find, poring through documents and records, searching Imperial databank after Imperial databank. The search was slow, but he was determined.
When he eventually did establish his academy, he chose the pastoral planet of Rehiri as its location. His nephew was his first student, but dozens more soon followed. His New Jedi Order did not replicate the old, but instead created something new, which sought not to simply create balance externally, but within themselves—and thus within the Force.
He was aided in his teaching by an old family friend, found working with members of the Rebellion’s former Phoenix Cell—Ahsoka Tano. Though she tried to refuse his offer, insisting that she was no longer a Jedi, Luke insisted, believing her years outside the Jedi would be more valuable than her years within them. And though she had no memory of having ever known Luke and Leia before, he was eventually able to convince her—largely, he suspected, because of who his father had been.
Under the guidance of his three teachers, Ben quickly grew into the talented Jedi that his mother and uncle always hoped he would be. Still, both Luke and Leia could sense the darkness that lingered in his heart. When he was thirteen, they introduced him to his grandfather. Anakin Skywalker was the one to tell his grandson the truth of his fall to the dark side, and of his time as Darth Vader. He counselled Ben, teaching him not to let the darkness overwhelm him, and to find balance within himself.
Though his students took priority over Palpatine, Luke never gave up his search, eventually drawing the attention of others. One day, a man visited the academy, asking Luke for his help. He claimed that he and his wife were being pursued by agents of Palpatine, and they wished to leave their young daughter with Luke, so that he could keep her safe. When Luke asked why they were being pursued, the man explained only that his daughter was strong with the Force—and of Palpatine’s blood.
Luke offered to help them, as well, but they refused. They disappeared, leaving Luke with no way to contact them and no promise of their return. Determined to keep the girl safe, Luke gave her the name Rey Skywalker and raised her as his own. As he had done with Ben, he kept the truth of her heritage a secret until she turned thirteen. But unlike Ben, Luke held no worries that his daughter would fall—he never sensed any threat of the dark side within her.
But despite their fears, Ben Solo didn’t fall. Luke’s new Jedi were not destroyed and, for a time, balance held.
Luke’s search for Palpatine eventually saw results: the discovery of a new evil empire, growing in secret in the hidden regions of the galaxy. He suspected immediately that the once-Emperor had something to do with this, despite supposedly being long-dead. Luke, Leia, and the entire New Jedi Order advocated the seriousness of the issue to the New Republic, but the Senate refused to give in to what they believed to be mere paranoia.
Leia, angered with their inaction, abandoned the Senate and, along with her brother, formed the Resistance, determined to fight back.
The First Order still rose, growing to cast its shadow across the galaxy.
But there was more than one Jedi who rose to meet them.