Before the war, before the coronation.

Padmé

  "Padmé! Allana! Come here now, mother is calling you!"  Sola yelled from the entrance of the gates that gave access to the gardens.

"On our way!" I yelled back, turning towards her, then I looked back at my younger sister. "Now Lana, we have to go back."

"Why?" She asked me with a sad tone of voice. Her brown locks were waving with the wind and her hazel eyes were looking back into mine.

"Well, it's time for us to go and have dinner." I said getting up from the grass of the Lake house. She held my hand as she stood up and we started walking back to meet up with the rest of our family. The summer air hit our faces and made the scent of roses fill our noses.

"After we eat, can we go and swim to our place?" Allana asked me. Just this year she learned how to swim and we always went to the small island that is in front of our home. It became her favourite thing to do.

"Of course we ca-"

"Come on girls, hurry up!" Our older sister yelled again.

"Yes!" I told her.

"She isn't patient at all." The two year old commented making me laugh.

"Indeed. Now, what do you think about a race huh?" I asked my baby sister. Her eyes glimmered with excitement and a challenging smirk appeared on her lips. "On the count of three. One, two-" In that moment she started running towards the gates. "Hey! That's unfair." I ran behind her as her laughter filled the air. When I was about to run past her I felt weird, as if something made it impossible for me to move.

  "I won!" She yelled as she walked into the household, in that moment, I gave the step that I was unable to give a few seconds ago. When I did, I almost loose my balance. I frowned. It was not the first time something...odd happened whenever someone was around Allana. She was able to lift things with her mind when someone dropped them by accident, or was able to stop and start things in her sleep when she didn't even notice. "Are you alright?" She asked, surely she saw my expression.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I said as I started smiling and ran towards her, when I reached her, I carried her on my arms. "You little cheater!" I told her as we giggled.

  We were laughing as we reached the living room. When my eyes went from the dimples on her cheeks to the people sitting on our sofa, they met a pair of blue eyes that had the exact shade of the ocean. She had a sweet smile on her features and she held an amazing beauty. "Mom?" I asked once my sight traveled towards my parents.

"Padmé, this is Adi Gallia, she's a Jedi." My father explained. "She-" he sighed. "She's here for Allana." My grip on my sister intensified.

"What? Why?" I asked as tears threatened to fill up my eyes and gave a few steps backwards.

"Yes." The Jedi started. "Let me ask you one thing." She stood up
and started to walk towards us. I placed Lana on the ground beside me but when the woman was standing before us, my sister hid herself behind me, like she always does when she felt scared or nervous. "Have you seen or felt weird things that seem impossible to explain happening around your sister? It could be anything." She asked. I didn't say anything, I just watched her and then I looked at Lans. I suppose my silence was enough answer. "Well, that's because she's sensitive."

"Sensitive to what?" I asked, my voice filled with curiosity.

"The Force." She commented as she extended her hand towards Allana's doll that was resting next to Sola. Suddenly, as if the air was moving it, it approached her hand. "It's something that surrounds everything and everyone and some people..." She placed the doll of the Queen on my sister's hands. "Are sensitive to it. They can make extraordinary things without knowing it, without wanting it, in the most unexpected way. Allana is one of those people." Her blue eyes traveled towards her hazel ones.

"You mean she's like you?" My older sister asked.

"No, but she could be, with training, discipline and patience." The Jedi answered. "That's why I'm here. She's still young, therefore she can be trained into the ways of the Force, and eventually, she can become a Jedi as well."

"Where?" My mother asked.

"Back at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant." Gallia answered.

"Coruscant? That's very far." I said while I remembered my lessons at school. "Isn't there one here? In Naboo?"

"I'm afraid not young lady." Adi Gallia answered.

"But she's too young, only a year old."

"I know. But she'll be alright, the Jedi will be her family there. She will not miss an education in every field. Plus, I heard her speaking, she's quite bright for her age."

"But-"

"Padmé, I'm afraid she has to go, it'll be better for her." My eyes travelled from the woman before me to my father when those words left his lips and I frowned.

"And what about us? We are her family, I...she...you can't just take her away."

"I know, but, if I take her with me, she'll learn to master her abilities. If she doesn't learn how to control the strength of the Force that she holds it could be dangerous. She could harm herself or others. About what I can feel she's very strong and I haven't taken a test of her blood to see the Midichlorians that could be in her system. It's the best thing for her."

  I sighed, then I looked at the little girl that was hugging her doll, looking at the woman. "She's too young...will she- will she forget us?" I asked, while Gallia was already extending her hand towards Allana. Her dark blue eyes that looked like the water of the lakes of our home planet looked back into my brown ones. A soft but sad smile was placed over her lips.

"No, I wound never allow her to do so." She assured me as her hand was placed over my shoulder. "But you all must know, that she won't be able to communicate with you every day. The Jedi...we have a very strict rule of no affection nor attachments. That's why we look out for the children when they are very young, but I know how it feels, and I won't let her go through that kind of feeling."

"What feeling?" Sola asked the Jedi lady, her voice had a shadow of sadness that I believe was invading us all.

"Loneliness. It's torture."

  Quietly and deep inside of my thoughts I was wondering if this Jedi Knight was actually willing to break the rules so that we could still be a family, even if they take her away when she was basically a baby. When I looked up, Adi was looking at me with another one of her tender smiles that let me know that she knew what was going through my head, her gestures let me know that she'd do what she had to do.

  Then I looked past her shoulder to meet my parents's gazes. "We must go now. I'm sorry." The Jedi commented and everyone's eyes were glued to Allana. I kneeled beside her and kissed her cheek.

"We'll play another day, I promise, alright?" I told my baby sister as a knot was formed in my throat and tears were making my sight blurry.

"Why are you crying?" Lana asked. Whenever one of us cried she did too, and the sight that I had before my eyes was breaking my heart.

"Well, because you have to go to a special school now Lans, you're a big girl and that-" I sighed. "That makes me happy, and very, very proud."

"Am I going to school with you?" Her tiny voice asked and I was about to break, so Iooked over my shoulder asking our older sister to help.

"No. Allana, you're going to a different one, that is quite...far from us." The look on our younger sister's face changed. It was no longer concern —due to the fact that basically everyone was crying— it was fear. Fear of not being surrounded by the ones that loved her and that she knew by heart, fear of being away from home. "Remember how you always say that you want to see the stars?" Sola asked, gaining a head nod that just reflected excitement now. "Well, on your way there you'll see lots, and the lady over here says that if you want to see them you have to leave now, flower." She commented, calling her by her nickname. Father always calls her that because she was born when the flowers bloomed.

  "Allana?" Gallia called her, extending her hand for our sister to take it. "Come on little one, time to go."

My sister looked at our parents, then at the Jedi, who just nodded and smiled. I was able to see a flash of sadness as Lana gave our parents a last hug on the Jedi's face.

Then, the little girl wearing a pastel blue dress rushed towards Sola and me and hugged us whispering 'I love you'. After that, she walked towards Adi, and held her hand with her tiny right hand, she held tightly her doll with the left one. And with a last glance of her hazel eyes, she walked out of the door. Hopped on a ship and waved goodbye to us while the gate of it closed.

  She was only one when I saw her leave, I was seven, Sola was ten. We were too young when we were separated. When our bond threatened to be broken.

  The afternoon went by very slowly. I sat down by the roses until father asked me to get inside to have dinner. While we ate, everyone seemed to be crying. The laughters of the youngest Naberrie were missing at the dinner table.

  When I finally went to bed, I took a look outside, focusing in the sky and the sky only. As I looked at the stars I remembered my sister's smile, and the last words she dedicated me as she parted to a different life. I love you, she said. That was the last I love you that I heard of our little flower for years.

  With tears I went to bed and fell asleep, longing to play with my little sister in the gardens once again.