Beyond - Legends Haunted by the Past (Jedi Praxeum, OC, Mara Jade)

TITLE: Haunted by the Past
TIMEFRAME: 12 ABY, Legends Continuity
CHARACTERS: Gavin Merridon (OC), Mara Jade
GENRE: Drama
SUMMARY: After learning a painful truth about his Jedi instructor, a Jedi trainee prepares to leave the academy, but his ride off world may force him to change his mind.

***

The ochre-colored stone floor of the Jedi Praxeum was cool to the touch despite the jungle heat that seeped through the open windows. Gavin Merridon sat cross-legged with the rest of the Praxeum's 30 students and instructors as they listened to Jedi Master Luke Skywalker speak about the dark side.

The entirety of the Praxeum was at the impromptu lecture, despite it being completely optional. No matter what their own experiences with the dark side of the Force was, the murder of a fellow student by another was enough to make anyone search for some sort of answers. Gavin wiped the sweat off of his forehead and wiped his damp fingertips off on his brown robes. They came away from the coarse but thin fabric a chalky white from the ashes of the funeral pyre that had fallen upon him.

Gavin hadn't known Havet Storm well, nor the humanoid saurian that had killed him, but he had attended the funeral and mourned with the apprentice Jedi that had. He looked across the room, past the group of Jedi that had been the first students, at Sevyl Mosbul. She was around the same age as he was, just entering her twenties, with fair skin tanned from constant outings out into the jungles and dark blonde hair.

"The dark side can cloud your mind," Master Skywalker said. The young Jedi Master was sitting on one of the steps in the Grand Audience Chamber, overlooking his students. "It can make even the most vile actions seem to make sense. My father faced the challenge of the dark side, as did Desann the other day. They failed. While our wayward student is no Darth Vader..."

The name slammed deeply into Gavin's mind. Darth Vader. His mind reeled and brought him back to a small spaceport twelve years into the past. His mother was carrying his toddler sister while he lagged behind, every step hounded by the Empire's soldiers in their minds. The very image of the Sith lord had burned itself into Gavin's memory. Vader was impossibly tall and towered over his father. The armor was as black as night, the plasteel armored mask a demon's face with two large soulless eyes over an extended snout. Two durasteel tusks jutted horizontally out of the mouth. The monster's breathing rasped in and out constantly, the symphony that accompanied Gavin's nightmares even to that day. Yet even Gavin's five acute senses couldn't measure to the fear that invaded his sixth. Through the Force, Gavin could feel an evil that dwarfed any other wickedness that he had felt before and would ever feel again.

He could still hear the calm in his father's voice as he told them all to flee, turning to face the Sith lord on his own. It was the last time that Gavin had seen his father alive. And now his killer was being praised for turning away from the dark side, all forgiven. Forgiven, maybe, but there were things that he could never forget.

"Something wrong, Gavin?" Harlan said as the young Jedi abruptly stood up.

"I've just..." Gavin trailed off, ignoring the brown-haired Jedi knight's attempt to get him to explain himself. "I gotta go."

Gavin's quarters in the Jedi Praxeum had been a room for rebel technicians years ago, once housing at the most five different beings in the days between Dantooine and Hoth. As a result, the room was spacious, and Gavin had filled the room with shelves filled with databooks and plenty of room to move around in. He opened up his storage locker and pulled out a large cloth bag. It wouldn't even carry all of his clothing, but he'd make do. He stuffed various bits of clothing into the bag and then walked to a small stand on top of the dresser.

In the stand was a thin metal cylinder, a bronze-colored metal intricately overlaid the solid durasteel. It had been given to him by his father before he had died, and it had been given to his father by his own Jedi master, before the Empire had come into power. The knowledge of the lineage beyond that was as lost as the other two men to have wielded it. He had initially kept the blade low-key from the other students that had enrolled in the Praxeum when he had, feeling that having more training in the Force than others of his age would discourage them. He locked the emitter switch into an off position and then placed it into the bag.

The door's control panel chimed. Gavin walked over to the entrance and opened it. Sevyl stood outside. "Are you all right, Gavin?" she asked. "You left pretty suddenly."

"I just needed to clear my head a bit," he said.

He noticed her nod and then look past him, across the room and towards the bed. The bag was still there and clothes that wouldn't fit were piled beside it. "Looks like you're going to clear your head for a while." She paused. "It's about your father, isn't it?"

Gavin nodded. Sevyl was one of the few fellow students that knew of Gavin's father and the exact nature of his death. "Yes," he said. "Master Skywalker just mentioned the name and I was back there again: an eight-year old boy that was scared shavitless."

"He can't control who his father was, Gavin, no more than you can."

"I know that, but, every time that I look at him now, all I'll see is Vader." Gavin shook his head and walked back, opening the bag upon his bed and stuffed another pair of pants into it. "Him wearing black all the time certainly doesn't help matters."

"So, you are leaving.". She crossed the room and laid a hand across his shoulder.

"Not forever," he said. "I just need to go and process it all, you know?"

***

"Good news and bad news, Gavin," Sevyl yelled. He was sitting on the rust-red hull of a Juggernaut, the large multi-wheeled rectangle of a vehicle having been left by Imperial troops during one of the many attacks on Yavin 4 throughout the years.

He pushed himself off of the edge, using the Force to slow his descent through the 10 meter fall. Knees buckled under him as he hit the ground with a little too much speed and he rolled with it.

"I think I still need to work on that," Gavin said. He accepted his friend's hand and pulled himself up from the damp ground. "What's the good news?"

"The next transport that Master Skywalker sent for has arrived."

Gavin furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "Then what's the bad news?" He rubbed his sore ankle.

"The pilot."

"What do you mean, the pilot?"

Sevyl flashed him a look that was equal parts amusement and pity. "You'll see for yourself."

The flat stone in front of the great Massassi temple that served as the Jedi Praxeum was empty save for a freighter that looked like some species of testudine with its flat and wide shape. Two wide and thin engines jutted out from the front of the ship, near its Corellian-inspired cylindrical cockpit, while two escape pods exited the ship diagonally from the stern. On the port and starboard sides of the craft, two six meter long cargo lifts were set down upon the ground, large containers filled with the needed supplies for the academy likely inside of them.

Standing among the cargo containers and the droids was a human woman. She was watching the droids move the containers from the ship to the temple, the arms of her blue leather jacket crossed against her chest. Her red hair fell below her shoulders.

"You're the pilot of this ship?"

"I'm certainly not standing here for fun," she said. She mumbled something under her breath about a man named "Karrde" and an "unfunny joke."

"Can you give me a ride off planet?"

The pilot gave a single quick exhalation of a laugh. "Skywalker losing another student?" She shook her head and then turned her green eyes to him again. "Where are you headed?"

"Back to Coruscant. If you're not headed there, but on the way, I can find my way off of Brentaal myself." Brentaal IV's location among the majority of the major hyperspace lanes had given the Core world a reputation as the galaxy's central hub.

"I'll be making a stop at Brentaal IV. As for payment, you know Kyp Durron?"

Gavin nodded. "Yeah, I know Kyp. Why?"

"He doesn't get within a hundred meters of this ship, you understand?"

He nodded in agreement. He didn't know what the pilot had against Kyp Durron, but he, Streen and Kirana Ti had recently left for some mission on Corbos. Gavin stood under the cockpit of the craft as the pilot walked toward the temple, but not before facing Sevyl. "You going with him?"

"No," the young Jedi said. "I'm just saying goodbye."

The pilot returned as the last of the storage containers had been emptied and returned to the cargo holds of the freighter. "You've already got your things, so hop on board." Gavin followed her as she walked up the ramp. The large engine of the freighter took up the majority of the middle of the ship and was flanked by two walls with floor to ceiling transparisteel windows looking down into the large cargo bays.

"There are two cabins at the end of these two halls that you can have," the pilot said. "Refresher is the first door on the right. Stick to there, your quarters or the cockpit. Don't go roaming throughout my ship."

"All right, miss..." Gavin trailed off, aware that he still hadn't heard the pilot's name.

"Mara Jade." The cockpit of the vessel was small, with a pilot's and copilot's station in front of the circular main viewport and two other crew stations behind them. "Take a seat and strap in."

They were in hyperspace and headed for Brentaal before she spoke again. "So, what made you quit? Friend of the Jedi that was killed?"

"No, not really."

"Friend of the Jedi that killed him?"

"No. Um..." It was stupid sounding to anyone that wasn't him, he knew that. "I just found out who Master Skywalker's father was."

Mara Jade laughed out loud before stopping. "You're kidding, right?"

Gavin frowned. "No, I wasn't."

"I figured that half of the galaxy knows that by now."

"Well, I'm part of the half that didn't. Besides, Darth Vader killed my father."

The smuggler in the seat next to him shook her head. "Darth Vader killed a lot of fathers. Far be it for me to defend Skywalker on this one, but he didn't have anything to do with it."

"I'm not blaming Master Skywalker for what his father did," Gavin said. He explained to her what he had explained to Sevyl; about seeing the Dark Lord each time that he looked at Luke now and relived the painful memories associated with it.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Mara Jade said. A hint of a smirk tugged at a corner of her mouth and her green eyes rolled. "How do you think he felt about it?"

His stomach sank as he considered it. He didn't know much about Luke Skywalker's life before the Jedi Master had destroyed the Death Star and almost just as much afterwards. His family had always been far too busy in their own fight against the Empire to pay much attention to individual rebels.

"He was raised by his uncle and aunt and told that his father was someone about as important as one of those droids back there. Then he meets up with some old Jedi Master who tells him that not only that his father was a Jedi, but he was murdered by Darth Vader. Then not a week later, both his aunt and uncle as well as that Jedi Master are also dead at Vader's hands, you should know that feeling."

His mouth clenched tightly and his brown eyes narrowed in confusion. "How do you know that?"

"You're a Jedi and your father was a Jedi," she said, a bit too quickly. "It's not hard to imagine that he trained you at least a bit before Vader killed him."

Gavin didn't fully accept her explanation and kept silent, thinking about everything that she had said so far. Master Skywalker had suffered much under Darth Vader and somehow he had still felt that there had been some remnant of the man that he had used to be within.

"And that's only the beginning of it, but in the interest of time I'll give the quick notes version of it: Vader nearly kills Skywalker's sister a year after torturing her and blowing up her planet--hells, that's another perspective you may want to hear--and then tortures her and Solo in an effort to capture him.

"So, you think your life has been ruined by Darth Vader and can't even stand the sight of one of his children? You might as well leave the Galaxy, because with Skywalker the head of the Jedi and his sister heading the whole New Republic you're going to see a lot them." Mara shook her head again. "Besides, look at Solusar back at the Academy, the same thing happened to him, except the Empire actually managed to catch him."

Gavin slumped into his seat, the verbal assault having broken through his own reservations. "You're right, you know." Still, there was one other question that remained, other than one that he knew he didn't want the answer to. "You know an awful lot about Master Skywalker."

She laughed. "Well, I was assigned to kill him once, and I've spent a few days at the--what does he call it?--Praxeum. So, I've heard almost all of his stories about Vader at one point or the other."

"Why did you leave?" The look that she shot him quickly caused the young Jedi to drop the issue. He had intended to think about everything once he had returned home to Coruscant and talk with his mother and sister about it, but after hearing what Mara Jade had said, he realized that there was only one person that he could really talk to about the situation. "Can you turn the ship around?


Another chuckle escaped from Mara's lips. "I thought this could happen and I should have just kept my big mouth shut." She pulled up the navicomputer and checked their destination. "Looks like we'll hit the next waypoint in an hour. You're lucky I'm in a good mood."

***

Spoiler: Author's Notes

* This story was originally written for the OC Challenge several months ago, but was shelved after a better idea came along.

* Gavin Merridon is an old original character of mine, dating back over a decade.

* I couldn't find any exact number for the amount of Jedi students that Luke Skywalker had at the time of this story, but I figured that 30 was a nice round number.

* Havet Storm is from a UK Choose Your Own Adventure-style book series while Desann is the main villain in Jedi Outcast. I figured that a Jedi murdering another Jedi made a pretty good catalyst for the main plot.

* Sevyl is another OC of mine that has had the dust shaken off of her. Her first and only appearance was in an OC Challenge mini-prompt.

* Harlan was used as an example character in the West End Games' Jedi Academy Sourcebook. That was her first and only appearance.

* Gavin twisting his ankle upon dropping off of the Juggernaut (likely the same vehicle used in a Young Jedi Knights short I wrote) is a call back to the earlier fanfic as well, were his father did the exact same thing. Apparently, it's genetic.

* The Gthroc makes its second appearance in a work of mine.

* The mention of Kyp Durron, Streen and Kirana Ti away on a mission establishes this fic takes place during the events of the comic book Jedi Academy: Leviathan.

 

A very nice story with a likeable OC

 

I really enjoyed this, very nice concept, thank you for writing

Of course an extra irony is that Mara's own childhood father figure, Palpatine, was also killed by Vader. But I guess it's not exactly in her nature to bring up her own personal history like that

 

Excellent bit of soul-searching by Gavin. Plausible situation as to what he's had to deal with and his reaction to luke's personal history and attitude towards Vader. Then coolest of cool! To have a talk with Mara who fills in a few missing pieces and gives Gavin a whole new outlook.

 

It was an interesting concept that I had to work with: have an OC be likable, but at the same time be completely wrong about things. I'm glad that I was able to get that across for you and the others, earlybird.

The thought had been floating in my head since 2007, always on the very back burner before I decided that it was time to put it out there during a challenge.

That extra irony is something that I hadn't thought of. The only irony that was in my head on the conversation was the implication that Mara had at least a marginal role in the death of Gavin's father, or witnessed it. It not being in her nature to bring up her own history is also something that I considered, which is even why I had her scoff in amazement that she was willing to defend Luke on this point.

Thanks for reading, Annia!

It's quite an easy thing for the majority of Luke's students at the time to accept his connection with Darth Vader. Most of them have had no real experience with him at all (by my personal count, only four other people--not counting Luke--have even been near Vader), so that makes them much more open. Gavin probably still has nightmares about Vader.

I picked Mara Jade for the pilot because she's probably the only person that would make a supply run to the Praxeum at this time that would actually tell Gavin how stupid he's being and that he's not the only person in the galaxy that Vader hurt.

Thanks a lot, Nyota!

 

Such a great fic!

I loved your description of Vader from Gavin's POV! Fantastic!

I also loved Mara defending Luke. I can see it from Gavin's POV, how hard it would be, but Mara makes some great points about how it would effect Luke.
I think Luke would be willing to talk to Gavin about it, and that might help him as well.

Great job!

 

Great little fic - a situation I can easily see happening among Luke's students since Vader must have destroyed so many families, and Mara's line about him having killed many fathers is very similar to what Vader says to Luke in the Marvel comics - perhaps Mara was more influenced by him than she would like to think!

But she's the perfect person to have this talk, and it's nice to think of her having a positive effect on Luke's Academy even if she decided not to train there.

 

Vader's already a frightening figure in his own right, but I needed to ramp up the terror. Gavin was about 8 years old when he saw Vader. Vader's already impressive height is increased from the view of of a child that's an entire meter shorter than him. Add in twelve years of nightmares and playing the memory over in his head, it'll be difficult to not see Vader as some mythic demon.

Luke would be the most rational person to go to at that moment, or maybe even Kam Solusar who had a similar experience. The sad thing is that Gavin is far from rational at this point. He wanted out and that was it.

As much as I deride Disney canon, I loved that line when I saw it in a preview and I had to borrow it.

She is a perfect person to have this talk with because of two main reasons: she's not afraid to speak her mind and call out what she sees as stupidity, and she's both briefly trained at the Praxeum as well as working closely with Vader.

Thank you both for reading, I'm glad that you enjoyed the story.