Beyond - Legends we're the same here always (Mara, one-shot)

Title: we're the same here always
Author(s): Leia
Timeframe: various
Characters: Mara Jade
Summary: Five times Mara Jade didn't cry, and one time she did.
Notes: First fic I've ever posted on the boards, despite being a member for almost 20 years! Fic and section titles from various poems. Written for the Mara Jade fic exchange on tumblr.

* * *

(5) it means mother to crack open

Down the hall, the baby snuffles in his sleep. On the edge of sleep herself, Mara jerks awake, waiting to see if the next sound is a cry. Ben makes no further noise, so she tries to relax, but the jolt of adrenaline has made that suddenly impossible. It’s a familiar cycle now, in these early days post-birth.

Her thoughts start racing. How much longer until the next feeding? That tiny noise he made—was that one of the thousands of small sounds he makes that she’s starting to catalogue as typical of babies? Or was it a sign of distress? Is the silence that’s followed one of deeper sleep, or has he stopped breathing? Stars, these postpartum hormones are making every little thing seem overwhelming.

She tries to tamp down on her emotions so she doesn’t disturb Luke sleeping next to her and simultaneously reaches out towards Ben with the Force. He’s fine. Of course. Stop, she tells herself. But it’s too late, Mara’s throat starts to close, and her eyes burn, but she can’t, she won’t, she fought so hard to be here for this, to have this blessing, and these feelings will pass, they have to they must they will and soon—

She breathes through the panic.



(4) whatever a sun will always sing is you

Mara never thought to get married. She’s kept most people in her life at arm’s length, including—perhaps especially—the various partners she’s had through the years.

And so it takes her by surprise when the doors open and she sees Luke, and the music swells, and she has to swallow hard in the face of his wide, shining grin. She can tell Karrde senses her split second of hesitation as she gathers herself, but then they are walking down the aisle, and Mara doesn’t cry because she’s too busy smiling.



(3) in fire and in blood

The firefight wasn’t long, but the thugs had had good aim, and Mara hadn’t quite been quick enough to dodge the last bolt they got off before Aves finished flanking them and ended the fight. The wound in her thigh is ugly and deep, dangerous if she doesn’t get it seen to, but not deadly.

Kriff, it hurts, though. Reflexively, her eyes water, and suddenly she is angry—at herself, at the thugs, at the whole damn galaxy. Karrde is not going to be happy that the local underbelly is looking to muscle in on his operation here, and this is her first run where she’s been given greater responsibility, so that’ll make her look real good. For a second she just feels so helplessly frustrated at the situation that she feels like giving in to her body’s response and letting the tears flow. But Aves is approaching, so she settles for briefly clenching her fists and then releasing. Leg throbbing, she grits her teeth and takes a limping step forward.

"Let’s get out of here."



(2) the taste of stone

It feels like the end of all things.

The vision and command had been clear—YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER—and then he was ripped away. The pain was so great that her body had collapsed in on itself, and yet, she did not cry. Even now that the initial shock has passed, and the true devastation of the Emperor’s death has been wrought, she has not wept.

Some things are too deeply felt for tears.



(1) behold a gift designed to kill

She stands over the body, hands trembling and slippery with blood.

It should have been clean—slip the wire over his head, hold tight—and Mara’s not exactly sure what went wrong. But then he’d lurched, and the wire slid out of her grasp. She had fumbled while reaching for her vibroblade, her thoughts scrambling with the panic of a failed plan. He stumbled, though, lunging across the lush carpet towards the silent alarm she knew was on the other side of the desk. It gave her enough time to finally get her grip on the blade, to fall on top of him and sink it into his side over and over again. He grunted, wheezing out a breath as she angled the vibroblade between ribs and into lung. When he collapsed, she pushed up onto her knees, grabbed his hair, pulled back, and slit his throat. It hadn’t taken long after that.

Her first kill, and it was ugly and desperate. The heavy smell of blood hangs in the air. She’s spent years training for this moment—it’s not at all how she imagined.



(0) the ceremony of innocence is drowned

12 standard years old. Not that the anniversary of Mara’s birth is ever commemorated with celebrations, like she’s seen in holovids. Rather, sometime within the month, she must complete a comprehensive exam of the instruction she’s had over the past year. Last year, she spent all day dancing, throwing knives, mixing poisons from common household cleaning agents and kitchen ingredients. This year, she knows to expect a simulated mission. But this foreknowledge doesn’t stop the flash of shock when she wakes up to total darkness in place of the familiar soft shadows of her room.

Mara closes her eyes again, opens them—no difference, just pure blackness. Her heart pounds once, hard. She feels the heat of panic prickle the back of her neck and moves to bring her hand up to her eyes, but instead it slams hard into something unyielding. She starts to lift her head, and that, too, hits something solid.

Mara’s stomach drops. How could—how did they—? She’s never breathed a word to anyone about it, but Mara counts this exact scenario of a tight, enclosed darkness as her worst fear.

She tries to tell herself to do her job, and the first step must be to escape. She takes a moment to take stock of the situation. There are only a few centimeters of space on any given side, including above her. There’s enough room to work her hands up to her face, but not enough to sit up or really even turn on her side. She speculates that there could be some internal release mechanism or lock, so she sets to work searching for it and manages to keep her breathing fairly even despite the fearful sweat that starts to drip down her face in minutes.

But an hour passes, and the lid stays closed.

She starts to feel a helpless anger rising, and once she’s lost her grip on her emotions, it’s not long before she’s noticing the stale air. How long can the air in here last? Mara holds her breath and listens hard, but her heart is pounding so loudly she’s not sure whether or not she can hear the slight hiss of air flow. Her throat tightens, so she starts to count to herself until she’s centered once more, but almost immediately her calm tears apart again like shimmersilk.

She shifts, body starting to ache from lying still, but even that small movement brushes her up against the edges of the compartment, and now she’s thinking of how close the walls are, of how much she wishes she could sit up at least, and is the oxygen in here getting thinner? Because it’s suddenly so much harder to breathe than just moments ago. Tears well up in her eyes, so she blinks, trying to will them away, but she’s losing control again. She’s starting to pant, and the panic feels like a hand squeezing her heart, her throat, feels like a constricting band around her lungs tightening more with each breath. The tears spill over, and now she’s gasping, sobbing openly, she’s beating the lid, pounding it, her hands feel numb and she can’t catch her breath, can’t—

It goes on like this for hours.

Eventually, the sobs start to ebb, but even still Mara persists in quietly weeping, clutching her bruised and bloodied hands to her chest. Her exhaustion is overwhelming. Without even quite realizing it’s happening, Mara calms just enough to drift off to sleep.

When she wakes, it’s as if she has finally crossed some threshold—she feels detached, weary and edgy but no longer terrified. She has a headache and puffy eyes, but she doesn’t cry again. There’s no point.

No one will come anyway.

 

I read this when you posted it elsewhere, and it's really excellent. I just love the insight and perspective that you give to her character here, and that last section is so very dark, and makes so much sense to her past with Palpatine, what he makes her, what she becomes, and her brand of strength. Well done!

 

The extreme adoration and emphasis of everything on tumblr. scares me to death (wish I was kidding), so I'm glad that you have posted it here - otherwise I would never know that there is such a wonderfully bleak character analysis.

At first, I only took a glance and assumed that this is a chronological story, following Mara from her birth to the age of twelve, having seen the word "birth" in the first of these story bits. I was wrong...

...and I wasn't wrong, at the same time. While these stories are told retroactively, Mara does cry in the "last" one and that one perfectly explains why the other five are the way they are - from the most beautiful and serene, to the most invasive and ugliest, she has seen it all and her emotions have matured compared to the moment where the lonely cries were all that ever was to her. It seems that, in her case, tears are a sign of complete emptiness and each thing she did made her complete in some way, for a part of her personality that she was missing. Almost like the five elements, in a way.

Hope to see you around here again!

 

Wow, this is really well-done. I think starting at the last point chronologically was a great choice since it makes the story that is being told a different one than it would be the other way around. You do an excellent job of getting into Mara's POV here -- funny thing, but it's fanfics like this that have made me a fan of the character, where I wasn't always sure what to make of her in the books. (Consequences of being written by a bunch of authors over many years with varying skill levels and understanding of the character.)

 

A brilliant way to tell a story! To dive back into the past bit by bit like a psychotherapist. You let the reader carefully look into Mara´s heart and soul. Well done!

 

Annia Piet: Thanks for noting it both places! Thanks for reading and commenting.

Findswoman: Thanks for reading! Yes, even though Mara doesn't really ever let herself give into it, I don't think she could avoid the impulse to cry occasionally because she's only human...but as I posit here, not crying is not always a sign of strength but rather damage.

Ewok Poet: Haha, tumblr is a frightening place. My age (much older than the average tumblr user) both makes the drama more annoying but also shields me from the worst, because I've seen it all in fandom before and I'm not ruled by teenage hormones, so I can roll my eyes and then scroll past. Thank you for reading! Yes, Mara learned early on that crying gets you nowhere, so you have to deal in other ways. As I said to Findswoman, not-crying isn't necessarily a sign of strength, but luckily Mara heals in other ways in her life, if not that.

Kahara: Thanks for reading and commenting! I'm thrilled that this fanfic has helped fill out her character for you. I loved Mara from the start but totally agree that her characterization in the EU can be inconsistent. I've reached a point in my life where I happily ignore much of the EU except for Zahn and a few others, so I place a high value on good Legends fic.

AzureAngel2: Thanks for commenting! I reversed the chronology at almost the last second for a couple of reasons, so I'm glad it worked for you!

I don't even know if these types of author replies are the norm anymore lol, but I appreciate you all taking the time to read and leave such thoughtful comments.

 

Absolutely agreed with your comment.

Re:tumblr: I've seen scary people over 40 there, actually.

Re:replies: Yes, they're a "norm", though most of us either tag the person by using @ before their name or by quoting bits of their replies. Pretty sure that most of us love to get replies to our comments.

 

Exquisitely insightful! I am so thrilled that Mara-love continues.

 

This is such a wonderful set of insights. The way they go backward chronologically, and yet the beginning and the end tie into each other so well. The first one, where Mara is the oldest, she listens to the crying of her innocent child and is compelled to go to him to soothe him; the last one, where Mara was the innocent child who is wracked with tears until she realizes no one will come anyway. She has endured so much to get this chance to make her son's life so much better than hers could ever be.

 

WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thanks for reading! Mara will always be my girl, so I hope people write fic about her for years to come still.

divapilot Thank you for your comment! It's interesting to think that baby Mara probably had her cries responded to (if I recall correctly, she thought she could remember being taken, so she must have been older than infancy), and maybe that helped form that core part of her that ultimately was resilient even in the face of what must have been a hard, cold childhood. The baby books all say to respond to your newborn's cries quickly so that they learn they are safe, that they aren't alone, that they can trust you. But unfortunately, Mara didn't have that support system for very long, and the contrast between her upbringing and what she wants for Ben must be great.

 

I'm a sucker for the five times thing, I always think it's a great way to do a character study, but this was one of the best I've read.

I love how it started kinda sweet and happy, and went darker as they went along.

From the five times she didn't, I really loved:
Her first kill, and it was ugly and desperate. The heavy smell of blood hangs in the air. She’s spent years training for this moment—it’s not at all how she imagined.
This brought a lot of emotion, which really set it up for the one time she did which was amazing!

I could feel how scared she felt, how hopeless.

Great job and thank you for sharing with us!

 

mavjade Thank you so much! I liked the idea of Mara, whom we tend to think of as collected and professional as the Hand, actually having a moment at the start where things don't go to plan, and she feels for just a second very off-balance and really gets a glimpse that her role is not glamorous at all.

 

Okay, wildly belated reply, obviously, but I just realized that you'd posted this here and heaven knows it deserves a bump

This is just heartbreaking, after everything Mara went through to keep Ben safe, after almost dying herself, to finally be together with Luke and their child, and still have to deal with postpartum panic attacks like this

So sweet Thank heaven you included one happy instance in this story to keep me sane

Aw, Mara She tries so very hard, her entire life, and with the stakes she's used to, failure has always been a near-deadly thing. I don't think she ever shook that entirely; smaller, ordinary failures carry more weight than they really ought to, because she can't think of it any other way.

Perfect line, darling

Ah, the unspeakable awfulness of training a child to kill

Palpatine almost certainly pulled that one from her. Such a betrayal, that he cultivated such devotion in her while simultaneously abusing her.

My poor baby Mara But a perfect example of how stoicism became such an ingrained part of her. Such a very good fic, dearest, I love it muchly

 

OBVIOUSLY, I was always going to come reply @Gabri_Jade.

I'm struggling to figure out how to post here anymore lol #old. Thank you for such a nice comment. I've admired your writing for forever now, so you just even reading it is amazing, let alone taking the time for such a nice comment.

She's such a perfectionist. That can take you dark places. Luckily for Mara, she learned to repress so bad she didn't even know it for years! Lol. But it would be rough to live on that knife's edge for so long.

I love you forever!!