Lady of Silences

Summary: Jabba's barge explodes in an inferno fire of ashes and death, and Mara wakes up. Or: Three times Mara Jade dies, and one. Mara Jade (Luke Skywalker). Complete in four chapters.

Warning: Angst.

Set: Story-unrelated.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

Happy Easter Holidays! (2017)

(swimming, drowning, sleeping, dying
and really, what's the difference)

Part 1 storm

She made a mistake.

It is not at much her mistake as a miscalculation, really. Besides, nobody could have expected that among the dozens of Jabba the Hutt's stupid, corrupt servants there would be one incorruptible one. And that he would be responsible for the female dance slaves, to boot.

"Please."

Mara is past the haughty glances she wore at first, past the seductive eye-batting. Here is a being that refuses to succumb to statistics, calculations, expectations and her compelling tone. It is not that she has not encountered those kinds of beings before: it is just that she has no time for exceptions-to-the-rules now.

"I am sick of the darkness. The stifling air… I can't breathe."

She knows how to act. She knows how to beg.

(Do not be afraid to lower your head, child. Remember: that way, your opponent cannot see his death mirrored in your eyes.)

She can appeal to his heart. She can bend anyone to her will; it is what she has been taught. She is good at it; it is why she is still alive. She can seduce. She can barter. She can negotiate. She can convince: with arguments, with force, with pleas. She can kill. Mara Jade was brought up to be a killer. She is good at being one, too.

Unfortunately for her, Jabba's slave master is not only incorruptible but plays by the rules.

"I can give you some water," he says, his voice almost soft. "I can see to it that you do not have to dance tonight. But I cannot let you up on deck."

For a second, she contemplates killing him. She does not carry a weapon, but she does not need one. A well-aimed jab with the edge of her right hand, a punch to the nose driving its nasal bone deep into his brain. She could grab her own chains – decorative, but sturdy – and knock him out (strangle him). She could even use the Force. Her technique lacks finesse, but it gets the job done: she could stop the flow of air in his trachea, halt his two hearts simultaneously. Squeeze his brain until –

Something inside her freezes up. The part she hates, the part that refuses to disappear no matter how hard she tries to kill it off. Lose the softness, child. It makes you weak. And she has tried and tried and tried. But it is still there, and she is still there, and there are the many things that make the Emperor's Hand defective.

No matter how hard she tries, she never will be perfect.

"You are pale. You should lie down. I will bring you some water," the man says, concerned. He seems like a compassionate man, one of the kind one does not expect in places like this – with creatures like these. But she knows first impressions can deceive. Why would someone with a pure heart work for Jabba the Hutt – and as a slave overseer, too? Nevertheless, he seems kind enough, and Mara is not too far gone (honestly, she is, but she can still see the world in all its painful shades) to discard the possibility of him doing this just because he is nice. Maybe he wants her to warm his bed. Maybe he is just concerned.

Mara learned, from early age, that it is not the universe that is cruel, but the beings inside it.

So she merely nods, silently, and moves back into the shadows of the room. It is filled with persons, full of whispers and choked laughter and sometimes a sob. Slave dancers dance because they have no other choice, but that does not mean that they do not accept their fate. There is no hope in the eyes of the people around her, but there also is the will to live. It penetrates every inch of the atmosphere, makes it hard to breathe. Many people in a room cause a sound: Mara dislikes the sound of this one. In fact, she dislikes the entire tapestry of sounds the desert of Tatooine paints: the full but run-down spaceport, the slave-rings she can see peeking from the collars of the threadbare robes here and there. The glaring sun and ever-present heat.

Silently, she sinks back into her corner and takes a deep breath, centers herself. She has a mission. She will see it through. She does not have to like this planet, but it is just one of many. She will leave it behind, soon. Twenty heartbeats, thirty. She can feel herself focus. Fifty. Silence fills her, familiar and soothing. The room fades into the background, still laser-sharp but not overwhelming. Mara's mind sinks into the detached state of calm that comes before action, and she relaxes.

Kill Luke Skywalker.

Mara did not ask the question but her Master must have read it in her mind: Why? Luke Skywalker is just a small fly, a bumbling farmer's son, a naïve boy trying to be a hero. But she already knew the answer. Skywalker, after destroying the Death Star and all the other things he had done, was one of the heroes of the Rebellion. He could no longer be ignored. But Mara also knew that there was more to it.

There still was the chance – however small it was – that Vader would be able to convince the rebellious son of his to join him, of them allying against the Emperor. Maybe her Master had seen the future, maybe he simply did not want to take risks.

Whatever the reason; Mara has her orders.

And, currently, she is failing. Stuck in a stifling chamber in the belly of the personal barge of Tatooine's most powerful crime lord, disguised as a slave dancer, she has no chance of getting onto deck where Jabba most likely is holding Skywalker and his rebel friends, not in time before Jabba executes him himself.

But Jabba is going to execute Skywalker, is he not?

In a way, that would fulfill her orders, no matter who actually delivered the killing blow. The only trouble is: she will not be able to see it. Mara is used to taking care of things herself. It is easier that way, minimizes the risk of mistakes. She trusts Jabba no farther than she can throw him, and telekinesis never was a strong point of hers.

"Could you braid my hair like you did the last time, Reina?"

Anjali is barely fifteen, or so she says. Mara knows the girl was sold into slavery to provide for her family, and she might have given the slave traffickers a wrong age to be sure to get taken. She has latched onto Mara since Mara stood up the head dancer on her first day, and has refused to let go ever since. Mara, reluctantly, has accepted her company; she is not sure whether she should not better push her away. After all, she will not stay there longer than necessary; while Anjali – no. Mara does not want to think about it.

(Oh, do not deceive yourself: not every slave wears chains, Emperor's Hand.)

"Come here," she says, instead, and Anjali drops onto the floor in front of Mara and bounces almost cheerfully. Mara busies herself combing through the girl's soft hair with her hands – only the head dancer has combs, and she does not like Mara at all – and concentrates on the soft, almost imperceptible hum of the barge all around her.

Anjali is singing to herself, a soft melody that sounds like the wind dancing through a deserted village in the middle of a blood-red desert.

She does not only look like a thirteen- or fourteen-years-old girl. Everything in her screams it, screams it silently and desperately. Since she joined the dance slaves, Mara has learned a lot about the girl and has revealed less to nothing about herself. The girl does not mind, she probably would not mind if Mara sprouted warts and looked like a bantha. Anjali does not need her to talk: she just needs her to be there, and that suits Mara just fine. She prefers the silence, the calm. These kinds of sounds – people talking, the motor humming, the white-and-blue astromech's servos softly whirring as he offers her a tray with a glass of water; the overseer's promise kept. Mara takes the glass, drains it and busies herself with Anjali's strands of honey-colored hair again.

The sounds change abruptly.

The whining motors stutter to halt, the turbines' roaring whithers and dies. Jabba's barge shudders to halt. The slave dancers rush to the small port window, chattering excitedly. Mara stands and carefully shifts towards the door; rather the opposite direction everyone else is taking. Anjali follows her.

If they stopped, the spectacle – whatever Jabba has in mind for Skywalker and his fellow rebels – is about to take place.

The door is massive – no visible bolts, no key hole – but she strains her hearing and listens. A roar of approval as the guests shout and applaud. Then, again, silence as Jabba's rumbling voice resounds as he makes his announcement. Mara knows Skywalker has been sentenced to death but she did not know how. Now, as she listens, she realizes the Sarlacc is supposed to be fed. For a second, something within her twists in revulsion. To be digested for decades, fully conscious, only feeling the excruciating pain from the poison – that is a death she would not even wish on Skywalker. But then, it is his death she wants – and she is there to make sure it is seen through. Her jaw tenses. She needs to be up there, watch, so she can make sure her mission is complete. Skywalker might be a dumb, lucky farm boy, but he has been trained in the ways of the Force. Jabba does not know that he is keeping a poisonous scorpion close to himself, that his prize will twist around to bite him and get to him if he is not careful enough. Mara has to make sure Luke Skywalker dies and can never betray the Emperor. Vader can never betray the Emperor. Not like he betrayed Mara–

The door unlocks with an almost inaudible click. Anjali grabs the veils of Mara's flimsy dancing costume.

"Are you leaving?"

Her eyes are huge, desperate. But also – resigned. Against her will, Mara cannot move. She thinks she could have dealt with anger, with tears, even with incomprehension and blame. But this – this silent acceptance of fate – is heartbreaking. Mara has seen so much – has killed people, for Force's sake. But this child breaks something within her. The words tumble from her lips, unwanted, unbidden. She regrets them the second she says them.

"I have to make sure of something," she says, as vague as possible. "I'll be back for you."

The girl's eyes are dull. There is nothing inside them, not even hope. It is like the light that has kept her alive for the past few days – a light that seemed to have been lit by Mara's presence – has extinguished completely.

"I promise." Mara grabs her hand, presses the tiny vibroblade into it which her associate had slipped her in Jabba's throne room. "Wait for me, okay? When I come back, we have to run."

She leaves without looking back, but she can still feel the girl's dull gaze in her back.

Mara never was skilled with the Force. She commanded it, but did so only rudimentarily. Working with it felt like trying to grasp water; it would elude her, again and again and no matter how hard she tried to cup her fingers without losing any. But now, it is enough to soften her steps and the soft chiming of her ridiculous dancing costume, and to turn away anyone's' unwanted attention. She knows how to slip under the radar, but it is something else entirely if one is wearing something like this.

The crowd roars, again.

Carefully, Mara climbs the last stairs to the sun deck. She can already hear the dull murmur of the people; then; a voice. Skywalker. The urgency increases.

"Jabba, this is your last chance!"

And then she rounds the gallery and sees him: Luke Skywalker. Bound, his hands behind his back, his back ramrod straight. He is wearing a black tunica; against the desert, it looks ridiculously dark. But his hair is a halo of gold; his eyes a piercing blue. His gaze never wavers from his adversary. For a second, something flashes through her – he, at least, he is going to his death with his head held high – and then Jabba laughs. It is an ugly sound, raspy and breathy and rattling. And then he orders his henchmen to drop Mara's opponent into the Sarlacc Pit, and everything goes to hell.

She pushes.

Mara pushes at the plank, desperately willing it to move, to budge, to make Skywalker stumble and fall to his death. She is too weak, or perhaps he is too strong. She is too far away. Skywalker whistles and takes a step forward and falls. And then he grabs the edge of the plank, catapults himself upwards into a spin and lands in one of the smaller, accompanying barges. And Mara hears a faintly familiar, whirring noise – blue-and-white astromech – and sees something arch through the air, glinting like a beacon in the desert sunlight. She expands her senses, forces herself to reach out, to grasp, forces herself, reaches– But the lightsaber lands squarely in Skywalker's hands.

With a few slashes of his weapon, the Wookie's shackles fall away.

The Wookie sets to freeing the smuggler. Jabba groans, once, long, and when Mara finally gives up, drenched in sweat, and turns around, she can see his face is turning blue. At the end of her shackles, Former Senator Leia Organa is strangling the huge, fat creature with all her might, her face contorted with hate. For a second, Mara feels agreement pulse through her; Jabba does not deserve any better. Then she remembers something else – Skywalker. The Jedi – because there is no doubt that he is one, now, Mara has seen her Master fight and she sees Skywalker. She has neither the knowledge nor the experience to judge his form, but – he is definitely holding his ground.

And suddenly she knows he is not going to die today.

Jabba's henchmen have no experience when it comes to stopping a Jedi. He goes through them like a Jawa through cardboard houses. Most of the lackeys are already down – of course down, not dead, curse this Jedi Codex – and Princess Organa is running towards the gallery, and the Wookie has gained control over one of the accompanying, smaller barges. Boba Fett was the first to go which speaks of at least a certain amount of rationality inside that brain of Skywalker's, because with that there is no opponent left who poses an actual threat to him.

He saltoes from one speeder to the next, taking out opponents left and right. There is beauty in his movements – speed, agility, and a certain self-confidence she would not have associated with a farm boy from this trice-forsaken desert planet. But any unbiased observer can see that he has learned, has grown.

Mara, for sure, is not one. That aside, she knows a speeder wreck when she sees it.

(The next one is going to collide with the barge-)

Her teeth grind together. Everything in her screams to run at him, somehow, somehow, there will be a way, there has to be a way to wipe this serene expression of calm right off his face-

Without a second look back she turns around and sprints back the way she came, down the stairs, through the corridor, without caring for anyone who might see her. The barge lurches like a drunk bantha as the first accompanying speeder capsizes and rams the barge. The explosion is muffled through the hammering sound of Mara's heart beat in her ears.

Did you ever fail me, my beautiful child?

The door to the dance slave's quarter is still open, nobody noticed, nobody tried to leave. The women are huddled together like scared birds.

"Anjali!"

The head dancer lifts her eyes as Mara rushes through the door, the terrified look in her eyes making her suddenly seem younger than the scowl of hate she wore before.

"Where's Anjali?"

Nobody answers.

"What are you doing?" Someone grabs her from behind and Mara almost lashes out, then recognizes her associate's voice. "We need to go."

"Just one moment," Mara says, ignoring him. "There's someone…"

"The machine room is on fire. This place is going to blow in a minute!"

I am coming back for you.

For an instant – an eternity – Mara stands frozen.

"We need to go!"

The voice in her ears is urgent. Mara has no illusions: she is there to kill Luke Skywalker, and the man behind her, with his face almost completely hidden in the shadows of his large hat, is there to bring her back. Because if she fails – and she failed, failed, failed – he is there to make sure she comes back to account for her mistakes.

Another explosion, and Mara thinks – maybe the first reactor blowing – she casts her senses out and feels the fight going on above her, a bright light right in the middle of it, and – you failed. And maybe that is why she longs so badly to keep her promise: she has never failed her Master before. But she cannot. She has no time, no means, cannot expect to do anything now than – than.

When she whirls around her associate is already moving, they dart through the corridor, across the shifting and lurching floor, past screeching metal and screaming beings and rooms filling with choking smoke.

They jump into the small speeder, her associate cursing for breathless seconds as the motor refuses to start up. And then they shoot past the hangar doors, free, and in the general chaos and confusion nobody even takes note of them.

Mara!

Chestnut hair, blue eyes, wide and filled with fear-

Jabba's barge explodes in a shower of ashes and death.