Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The whole mess starts when Leia arrives at the mess; she had been trying to enjoy Gruncle Wolffe’s tiingilar with Ailyn, Blythe, and Sabine. The four of them, raised on the food as they are, are laughing at the other padawans around them as they try to choke back the spicy casserole and match them bite for bite, when Leia strides through the doors like a storm. Arriving with all the dramatics that the princess was known for, her dark eyes sharp with intent, Mara had felt a shiver go down her spine when Leia’s gaze landed on her.

“I have it on good authority that you know classical ballroom dancing.” Leia doesn’t ask, instead she makes a statement, and Mara had swallowed her mouthful, eyeing her boyfriend’s sister suspiciously.

“Yes.” She had said slowly, and the smile Leia aims at her is frankly terrifying.

One thing led to another, and the next thing Mara knows is that Leia has declared that the Alderaani Moon Day Ball would be taking place in a week and that Mara would be attending as her plus one. Mara had been too stunned to argue, and found herself swept away by the determined princess, poked and prodded by handmaidens, and pinned in place by a tailor. Mara isn’t really the biggest fan of the whole process, not until Leia explains why she needed a plus one in the first place.

“I’m seventeen now.” Leia rolled her eyes as she studied the light yellow and orange fabrics that the tailor had decided on for Mara’s dress. “Perfect betrothal material, last year was bad enough. I had so many sons and grandsons thrown at me I was ready to scream, if I show up this time with a date, then it will stave off most of them. You were just the best candidate.” Leia offers her an apologetic smile, “If it makes you feel better, I really only need you for the opening dances, then we can stand by the desert tables and you can leave it all to me. We can make snide comments about Lord What’s-His-Face and Lady Who-The-Hell afterwards.”

“Sure. Free food right?” Mara had shrugged it off, and goes back to suffering in silence as Leia’s tailor flutters around her, pointedly ignoring Leia’s thankful smile so that she can maintain her reputation.

She also ignored Leia’s very obvious smugness when she drags her out in the dress to get everyone’s thoughts on the cut and fabric, trying not to let her flush become too obvious while the other padawans gawk at her, and Leia hangs from her arm, smirking at Luke and Ezra in particular. Mara tries to hide how flustered she gets when the younglings start falling over each other to complement her; she’s never worn something so fancy before, the floaty fabric barely a weight against her skin. It fades from yellow to orange through the layered skirts, the bodice is a gentle white, tight until her hips where the skirts flare out and continue to her knees, and the small sleeves slip off her shoulders. Decorating the bodice, growing from her hips with golden thread, are little vines of flowers.

It’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever worn.

It feels weird, but not in a bad way.

“I’m so jealous.” Leia sighed, leaning against the taller girl, still smirking. “It takes a really special person to be able to pull off yellow like you do, you hit the genetic jackpot.” Leia had moved around her, humming thoughtfully, tugging the skirt just so and fluffing her red hair, twisting it over her shoulder. “We should braid some gold ribbon into your hair, it will bring out your eyes, a little gold powder…” Leia dissolved into a one sided conversation about makeup and hair styles that left Mara completely at a loss, and Ailyn had just scoffed.

“It doesn’t seem very practical if you ask me.” The twelve year old scowls, arms crossing over her chest, “It offers absolutely no protection.”

“It’s not supposed to.” Leia retorted, “But the skirts are great for hiding knives under.” She tugs on Mara’s skirt again to point out the purposeful and hidden slits along her dress, “All she has to do is reach through here and pull out a knife if anyone tries anything.” Mara had let the shorter teenager turn her around so that she could show off the cleverly disguised pocket along the small of her back, cushioned with fabric so that no one would feel the weapons hidden underneath. “She can slip her sabers right in here and no one will be any wiser.” Mara could sense the interest that Ailyn was trying to hide, strong and clear in the Force.

The rest of the time until the Moon Day Ball pass quickly, and soon Mara finds herself standing in the Alderaani Royal Palace, wearing makeup for the first time in her life, standing awkwardly beside her buir as he goes through the motions of dressing in the blue and green armour and drapes of the Palace Guard. She runs a nervous hand through her perfectly curled hair, admiring the glittering strands of gold woven through the red.

“You look beautiful, ad'ika.” Her buir sooths, placing a hand on her shoulder, and Mara smiles shyly at the gray haired man, leaning towards him to tap their foreheads together fondly.

“Thanks, Buir.” He smiles, kissing her cheek before moving away to pull up the hood of his disguise and fasten the delicately carved golden mask over his eyes, hiding the distinguishing features that made him recognizable as a clone.

“Have fun, Mar’ika.” He presses a kiss to her forehead before he’s slipping from the room, and Mara is left alone to catch her breath and mentally prepare. She does a final check on her hidden weapons, making sure everything is secured and in place; there shouldn’t be any danger, Leia and the Viceroy had assured her, but Mara had come to learn that preparedness never hurt anyone but her enemies. Her buir isn’t the only vod taking the place of Palace Guards, so she knows that she’s not the only one with a bad feeling about this whole thing; apparently there would be Imperials in attendance as well, and the royal family couldn’t get away with not inviting them, and there were plenty of neutrals that both sides would be attempting to sway.

There would be a lot more political playing then Mara was necessarily comfortable with; politics was her mother’s song and dance, but Mara had taken more after her paternal lineage. She may have sat through lessons on the art, but she still preferred shooting her problems then talking her way out of them.

She’s doing this for Leia.

Mara takes a deep breath, smooths down her dress, and straightens, pasting a politely coy smile on her face as she steps out of the dressing room.

Chapter Text

Standing at Leia’s side, it’s Mara’s responsibility to smile and look pretty to stave off any romantically interested parties while also trying to look like she was politely invested in the conversations going on around them while observing high class expectations. Keeping her smile on her face with well-trained practice, Mara takes a slow sip from her flute of champagne, listening with only half an ear as Leia exchanges polite conversation with Lady Johalana Hargale of Ganthel - something about a military bill that had been passed recently to allocate more funding for the Academy on one of Ganthel’s moons.

Letting her eyes wander, Mara takes another small sip, wishing desperately that she could politely down the whole glass and mourning the fast metabolism that she had inherited from both her mother and father that didn’t allow her to get any more than a buzz for a few moments no matter how much she would drink. Despite what Leia had promised, she hadn’t managed to escape the bejeweled clutches of the high class members loitering around them after the opening dance, and she lets her eyes rest mournfully on the buffet tables lining the walls.

Lady Hargale finally moves on, catching sight of a politician from some other planet to bother, and Leia tugs on their linked arms, trying to discreetly start leading her towards their goal, while also leaning against her to make it seem like the two of them were more than just friendly when she caught sight of one of the little lordlings eyeing them.

Complementing each other in orange-gold and blue-silver, the two of them have been catching a lot of looks from interested parties; it’s not that Mara isn’t used to these kind of looks, having gotten plenty on Tatooine as she grew older, but it reminds her too much of one certain kind of interest that she had learned quickly to avoid. It was the interest she had picked up from Jabba’s goons, the kind of interest redheads off of Stewjon garnered.

It reminded her too much of The Third Brother.

“Lady Hargale is sympathetic to the Order.” Leia whispers, disguising her words by pressing a quick kiss to her cheek, an attempt to comfort her unease, and Mara eyes the old woman with renewed interest. “Her cousin was a Knight who died on Geonosis.”

“Ah, Princess Organa!” They’re once more interrupted from their attempted snack run by another approaching lord in grandiose robes, and a rather impressively curled mustache with some sort of gold dye on the tips to try to distract from his rather ugly nose.

Leia falls back into her princess face, turning them to smile at the pot-bellied man, while he presses a polite kiss to her knuckles. “Lord Tippfitz, it’s lovely to see you again.” 

“You grow more beautiful every time I see you, Princess.” The Lord gushes, and by the way he acts, Mara can tell that he’s not as important as he’s trying to appear with the gold inlays on his robes. “And who is your lovely companion tonight?”

Mara has to flutter her gold-dusted lashes in just the way she’s been told Lords appreciate, adding just the right amount of demure-girl to her face, smiling at the man but not showing her teeth while she curtsies, “Mara Mothma, My Lord, it’s an honour.” She gives her cover identity, and Lord Tippfitz takes her hand gently in his own meaty grasp, and she’s glad for the white gloves covering her skin when he presses a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

“Any relation to Senator Mothma, by chance, Lady Mara?”

“Only distantly,” Mara tells him modestly, wanting to pull her hand from his grasp as the graying man rakes his gaze over her openly, but not willing to cause a scene by doing so. Her supposed standing compared to the Lord’s wouldn’t allow for it.

“Princess, may I borrow your companion for a dance?” Lord Tippfitz requests, and it’s unfortunately not something either of them can turn down, so Mara finds herself drawn onto the dance floor once again, this time by an aging Lord. Around the ballroom, she can sense her father and his brothers bristle, but there’s nothing any of them can do but keep a close eye on them. “I admit that I’m not the most educated individual on the Mothma lineage,” The older man said as he led her through the dance, “How did a distant relative to a senator catch the eye of the Heir to Alderaan, if I may ask?”

Mara titters, “It’s a funny story really, My Lord, and I am truly honoured that Princess Leia requested my companionship for the night. I have never met so many impressive individuals, such as yourself.” The right brush to his ego, and Lord Tippfitz swells in pride, and the rest of the dance is spent listening to the man talk about his family’s ties to the Empire and trying not to let her absolute boredom show.

Finally, the song ends, and they bow to each other before Lord Tippfitz leads her back to Leia’s side.

“It was truly a delight to make your acquaintance, Lady Mara.” The man kisses her hand again, bowing to Leia, before excusing himself.

“Truly a disgusting man.” Leia says as soon as he’s gone, and Mara nods, “He tried to present a betrothal offer to Father last year.”

“He’s old enough to be your father.” Mara mutters in disgust, keeping her smile pasted to her face, and Leia huffs indelicately.

“That’s what he was told.” The shorter teenager takes Mara’s arm again, and they continue towards the buffet table, “But it seems like he’s decided to look at a different target.”

Mara’s smile turns into a smirk for the barest of moments, and she can feel Leia’s dark amusement in the Force around her, “Well, it’s not like he can ask my father.”

“I almost want to see him try.”

“He’d get torn apart.” Mara sings under her breath, and Leia’s teeth flash for a moment beyond her painted lips.

“And then Ben would take care of whatever he left behind.”

Finally they reach the buffet table, and Mara maneuvers herself to stand closest to the guard at the side of the laden surface, nodding to Echo with a small smile as she delicately peels a glove from her hand to lift a small pastry. Everything has been made small enough to not ruin anyone’s carefully applied makeup or smudge painted lips, and Mara finds it ridiculous and frivolous.

As she snacks, standing close enough to the disguised Echo to slip the notice of any high class snobs as Leia’s attention is once again pulled away by another politician, she casts another glance around the ballroom, taking in the unnecessarily fancy clothing.

“I can’t believe màthair misses these things.” She mutters, and Echo snorts. “I can’t believe that I’m not allowed to stab anyone.”

“They probably deserve it.” The cyborg agrees, “But it’s unfortunately illegal.”

“Only if I get caught.” She smirks, then sighs, “Maybe in another life I could have been an assassin. I think I’d be enjoying this a lot more if I was.”

“Careful there, vod’ad, your murderous intentions are starting to show.”

“Stars, I wish.” She lifts another flute off of a passing server with a smile, then takes a purposeful sip. “These things need more alcohol, no wonder Fox almost started crying when he heard that I was going to this thing.”

“Poor guy was scarred for life having to guard these things.”

“The trauma just wafts off of him.” Mara snickers into her flute to hide the expression. “It smells like expensive perfume and fakeness.”

Behind his mask, Echo sends her a sympathetic glance, “Just a little longer, kiddo, then you can politely make a break for it.”

“Can’t kriffing wait.” A longing glance is sent towards the doors, and Echo snickers again as she drains the rest of her flute. “Can I become an alcoholic?”

“If your mother was here she’d say not until you’re an adult.” Echo smirks, “But with our metabolism? Not likely.”

“Damn.”

Chapter Text

It takes another hour before Mara is able to escape; by this point, most of the important figures attending the ball are too drunk from the alcohol to care for much politicking, so Leia is safe from the worst offenders at her mother and father’s side and it allows Mara to slip away from the crowds. She leaves the main ballroom with ease and a smile, intending on meeting up with her buir during his rounds, and as soon as she’s out of sight from the party goers, she lets the smile fall.

Force, she’s glad that Leia hadn’t made her wear heels.

With a low sigh, Mara turns her gaze to the elegantly carved walls and the massive stained glass windows around her. Alderaan is a beautiful planet, and if she weren’t here for the ball, she’d probably enjoy it a lot more than she really is. Full of lush plant life and glittering buildings, Mara truly does want to go explore, to experience it, but she also knows the danger of wandering off, even on a peaceful planet like Alderaan.

Here, she doesn’t know who’s a spy, or who’s a possible traitor. She doesn’t know if anyone might identify her as a Jedi, or if someone might turn her into the Empire for a profit. Bail had promised that the Palace was safe, but Mara knows that nowhere is truly safe, not with the Sith in control of the galaxy. So instead of exploring like she so desperately wants to do, Mara starts towards where she hopes her buir will be, extending her senses outwards to try to locate him.

But it’s a mistake.

Mara freezes midstep, a shiver travelling down her spine when something cold brushes up against her mind; something oily and Dark, and hauntingly familiar. It was someone Mara had hoped to never sense again.

And she knows he sensed her in return.

Mara picks up her pace, reeling her Force signature back in to try to stop him from catching up to her too quickly, wanting to start running towards her father but unwilling to lead her hunter to him. Drawing up to the nearest consol on the wall, Mara begins to purposefully press buttons, knowing that Echo was plugged into the system, and any irregularities he picked up would be reported and acted on. With that finished, Mara turns on her heel, pulling a lightsaber from her back and a vibroknife from her thigh, shifting into a ready position.

A figure garbed in expensive black silks comes striding around the corner, purple-tinted skin and long white hair tied back in a sleek nerf tail, exposing a handsome face marred only by the dark purple scars that had been added to his profile - distinctive blaster burns that stretched from jaw to cheek on the left side of his otherwise beautiful face. His signature is a black hole, sucking away any warmth in her bones until she doubted she’d ever be comfortable again. The Third Brother smiles at her, slow and predatory, poisonous eyes glittering.

“Hello, dear one.” The Sith purrs, pausing at the end of the hall, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“That was the plan.” Mara snarks, and she sees delight spark in those yellow eyes.

“My! I didn’t know you had a mouth on you, little one, why didn’t you ever tell me before?”

Sarcastically, Mara says, “Didn’t feel like it.” The Third Brother’s smile widens, showing off his sharp fangs, starting to prowl towards her once again. Without hesitation, Mara activates her saber, the violet blade hissing to life, and Brother Melkis pauses again, eyeing the blade with interest.

“Another thing you never shared.” His expression goes from faux-friendly to dangerous with a blink, and he pulls out his own hilt, “Darling, I thought we had something, but you were keeping secrets.” One blade of the red saberstaff activates, followed by the other in quick succession, and the blades hum ominously as he spins them through the air lazily. “Tell me, what is your name? Jade or Mara - or is it perhaps something else?”

“It’s Nunya.” Mara snaps, and amusement sparkles in the Sith’s poisonous gaze.

“Nunya Business, I assume? I was young once too, my dear, I remember using that very line on my instructors.” Mara glowers, and the Inquisitor’s smirk doesn’t falter.

“It’s a traditional Ryl name for go kriff yourself.” She replies blandly, and the Third Brother throws his head back and laughs, before the eerie cackles taper off and the Inquisitor rolls his shoulders, smile suddenly melting off of his face.

“Well, Miss Nunya.” The Third Brother says slowly, “Shall we get to business?”

“Depends, is this contract work or seasonal?” Mara responds with a peppy grin paired with a glare. “How much will I be paid for my time?”

She moves within a moment, swinging her lightsaber and going for a quick jab with her knife when her first attack is deflected. They exchange quick blows, darting in and out, aiming to deal the most damage as possible. Brother Melkis snarls when her vibroblade knicks his hip, and Mara retreats with a quick hand spring to escape his answering attack, wincing slightly at the smell of burning fabric.

She’s outmatched right now, and she knows it.

The Third Brother is older than she is, has been training longer, and has the weapon advantage. Her shoto sabers have much shorter blades than his saber staff, and she’s unwilling to show her trump card just yet and pull out the second blade. She’ll stick to her knife and dominant saber for now, until she has enough of an opening to take him by surprise. It’ll be hard, but the moment she can slip past his guard, Mara will have the advantage in closer combat, and will be confident enough to take out her second lightsaber.

Time loses all meaning between strikes and dodges, and Mara isn’t sure how long she’s been at this, but her beautiful dress is torn and burnt. She’s lost both of her flats, sacrificing them as distractions to get a couple stabs in on the Sith - she kind of wishes she could have immortalized the look on the Sephi’s face the moment her first shoe had nailed him in the eye, because the second one didn’t have the same effect. She had managed to catch the Third Brother’s hand in an attack, scoring a laceration across his knuckles with her second vibroknife, the first having been sacrificed in a wild throw and was currently buried in his thigh.

Booted feet on the fancy tiled floor is the only warning either of them get before the sound of blaster fire reaches their ears, the Third Brother turns, and jerks as the bolt goes through his shoulder, but he deflects the rest. Her buir stands at the other end of the hall, rifle at the ready, and Mara takes her chance, throwing herself at Brother Melkis’ turned back as he Force shoves the disguised trooper away.

The Sith is turning back to her, his blade swinging, and two attacks land. Mara barely has time to comprehend the pain in her side, hands going slack around her weapon, before the Inquisitor howls and Mara is thrown through elaborate stained glass and clear from the building. The world goes dark to the sound of her buir’s scream of her name and the feeling of gravity pulling her down, down, down.

Chapter Text

Mara regains consciousness quickly, and has only moments to piece together what’s going on. She’s falling, surrounded by glittering shards of broken window, and the hard ground is approaching rapidly, her ribs burn and her face is wet, and if she doesn’t do something soon she’s going to hit the stone. Her hands are empty, so she must have dropped her lightsaber and knife when the Third Brother Force threw her, but -

She fumbles in the pocket at the small of her back, quickly pulling out her second ‘saber and igniting it. Mentally apologizing to the Organas, she plunges the blade into the wall nearest to her, the metal and stone work hissing and melting as her plummet slows, shuddering to a stop, and she ignores the jarring pain that explodes in her arm and side when she slams against the wall. Looking up, she follows the line of red-hot slag left over from her desperate move, listening to the sound of glass hitting the ground below her, and she looks up towards the broken window she had come from.

It would be easier on her if she were to drop to the floor and hurry back up there, but she knows that her father is still up there with an angry Sith, so the easier way isn’t the best way in this instant. Running through the Palace is too slow, and it would be putting everyone in there in danger. So Mara grits her teeth against the pain in her arm and side, ignores the blood coating one side of her face, and pulls out her last vibroknife.

Looks like she’s climbing back up the side of the building.

With a jerk and a generous application of the Force, Mara stabs her knife into the wall in a section of decorative stone, deactivating her lightsaber and pushing the hilt into her mouth. The cooling line of melted metal and stone is used as a grip, and Mara begins to climb. Half way up, she has to close her eye against the coating of blood streaming from her brow, and she pointedly doesn’t think about the feeling of it running down her face and dripping from her jaw. She ignores the pain from hot metal burning into her hand and feet, and pushes away the feeling of the glass stuck in her arm moving as she does. Most of all, she disregards the burning pull of a lightsaber burn across her ribs.

Finally - finally - she reaches the broken window, reaching up to grip the sill and pull herself up and over. Glass shards dig into her skin, but she ignores this too as she rolls back into the building, wheezing. She only has a moment to cough though, before she pushes herself up again to drag a hand across her face to try to flick the blood away and try to gather her thoughts enough to get moving again. The hall is empty now, but she can hear the sound of blaster fire just around the corner, along with the humming of a lightsaber.

She pushes herself onto her feet, ignoring the pain from the torn skin, and she staggers slightly, having to use the wall to steady herself as the world spins around her, but she pushes it all away though, gathering the Force to herself to give her the energy she doesn’t have. Mara shoves off of the wall, and hurries down the hall towards the sound of battle, blood stained hand clenched around her lightsaber hilt tight enough to bruise - she’s worried that if she loosens her hold on the metal, then she might not be able to keep it in her grasp.

Mara rounds the corner; her father has been stripped of his mask, holding her lost saber in a reverse grip in one hand and his rifle in the other, amber eyes glaring furiously at the Sephi. He’s favouring his right leg as he stands over a fallen Echo. The other man is down a leg, the prosthetic laying abandoned on the floor not too far away, but he still holds on to his own blaster stubbornly, as he drags himself away from the approaching Sith, continuing to fire, but having the bolts deflected without fanfare. Brother Melkis jerks and snarls as one of her father’s shots gets through his guard to nail him in the hip.

The Force swells around the Third Brother, Dark and hate filled, and her buir stills, eyes widening in shock as he chokes, being lifted from the ground. He drops his weapons to grip instinctively at his throat, gasping and wheezing as he’s Force choked, and Mara can only watch in numb horror.

Mara throws herself forward again, this time going low instead of high, rolling under the Sephi's blade and aiming a purposeful kick towards the hilt of her knife still sticking from his thigh, driving it in even further. She twists back to her feet, swinging her saber, aiming for the arm he’s choking her father with. As the Inquisitor crumbles, his leg giving out on him, Mara’s violet blade shears through his arm just below his elbow, separating the offending limb from his body. A kick powered by the Force nails him, purposefully, between the legs - Mara taking a great amount of vengeful pleasure in doing so to the man who had tormented her and haunted her for the last two years - and the Third Brother stumbles back.

His face is stained with purple blood, a massive slash that Mara can recognize as from her own attack stretching from jaw to brow, slicing through one of his poisonous yellow eyes leaving an empty, bloody cavern in its place. She had managed to cut deep enough in the time before he had carved through her ribs to see bone poking through the torn skin. He looks stunned, like a lost child, his single eye staring at the empty place his arm used to be as he falls to the ground, and for a moment, Mara hesitates, looking at his expression.

She remembers his memories, the young, frightened teenager he had once been; he had been a child once too, one who had loved his master and who had mourned her deeply. He’s a monster now, but once, he had been a little kid who needed more support than he was given by people who hadn’t understood that that was what he wanted. She had been driven by anger in her attack, but now that anger was gone, replaced with doubt.

Her hesitation however lets the Inquisitor recover, expression twisting in inarticulate rage. His deactivated lightsaber lays on the floor, and instead of reaching for it, he lashes out with a hand, and Mara only gets a moment of warning at the sight of lightning sparking across his fingers, before her body seizes. It feels like she’s burning from the inside out, her vision whites out, and she can barely hear the sounds of her own screams. Mara isn’t sure how long she suffers, because time doesn’t seem to have any meaning beyond the pulsing pain, before it stops, and she sags.

When she’s aware of her body again, she can feel hands pulling her off the uncomfortably hard ground. She hurts all over, her ears are filled with cotton, and her thoughts are jumbled; Mara’s pretty sure that her heart is running a marathon in her chest but it also feels so slow . The burning of her lungs alerts her to the fact that she’s not breathing.

Hands pound against her abdomen, forcing air from her lungs in a great hack, and suddenly Mara feels much more aware of what’s going one around her as she manages to suck in another rattling breath.

She blinks, trying to clear the white spots from her eyes, to find her buir’s pale face leaning over her. His shaking hands are cradling her face, and he presses quick, frantic kisses across her brow, muttering a prayer under his breath in Mando’a. He’s not just grasping her head for the sake of it, Mara realizes, but he’s also pressing torn fabric against the gash that had been left by broken glass ripping through her skin.

“Ow.” Her mouth feels like it’s full of sand, but she manages to make it work properly enough to communicate, and she winces when her ears pop, her hearing no longer feeling blocked but still muffled around her.

“Yeah, I’d kriffing bet.” Kix’s face swims into her line of sight, scowling thunderously, and she blinks at him. “Ka’ra kid, what happened to you .”

“I g’t th’wn outta win’o.” She manages to slur, words garbled, and she squints around her pounding head. “An’ stabbed. Bu’ only a ‘ittle. Th’n I cli’b’d b’ck up.”

“That would explain all the glass I am literally picking out of you.” The medic says dryly, and now that she knows what he's doing, she can feel the shards being pulled from her skin. Mara just sort of flops, trying to get a look at it, but her buir’s hands keep her head still. “Hey, don’t.” Kix scolds, and Mara furrows her eyebrows at him, before wincing when it pulls at the torn skin on her face. “Stop squirming, you little jare, you’ll just make it worse.”

“‘M fin’!”

“You’re really not.” Kix snarks, “You’re well on your way to having a matching father-daughter scar, your one arm is shredded, you’ve got glass inches from your spine, your other arm is dislocated at the elbow, you’ve got burns and melted metal stuck to your feet and left hand. Lightsaber burns on both shoulders, your hip, and across your ribs - which are cracked if the pain hadn’t alerted you to the fact. And you just got electrocuted, which could lead to severe damage that I can’t see. So stop moving.”

“You sho’ld see th’ ‘ther guy.” She blinks when her buir’s fingers press tighter against her cheeks, still shaking, and she meets his stormy gaze.

“Well, he made himself scarce when we came around the corner.” Kix tells her, “But good job on the arm, he’ll be licking that wound for a while.”

“You missed it, vod.” Echo’s voice drifts over them, but Mara can’t roll her head to look at him. “She kicked him in the dick, it was glorious.”

“Serves ‘im rig’t.” Mara grumbles, “‘e’ll think t’ice b’f’re t’chin’ teenag’d girls 'gain.”

Above her, her buir growls. “That was the demagolka who-” He closes his eyes, cutting himself off with a wordless snarl, “I should have aimed my rifle a little more to the right.”

“Alright,” Kix cuts them off, “I’m putting you under, kid. We’ll be back on The Temple before you know it.”

“‘Kay.” Mara blinks heavily, barely aware of the pinch of the hypo needle sliding home in the crook of her elbow, and with the next blink, she’s gone.

Chapter Text

The Temple feels so empty around her, most of her family has gone to join the Battle for Lothal, but her lingering injuries mean that she can’t go with them. It had taken a month before Mara could move without crippling agony running through her limbs; her bones ache from the lightning that had coursed through her body, her hearing hadn’t fully recovered, leaving the world muffled around her.

Standing shirtless in front of the mirror, Mara lets her eyes travel across her exposed skin. The daily bacta baths had done its work to make her injuries heal quickly, but it wasn’t a miracle cure, and she still scarred. Bronzed skin is marked with jagged lightning scars, the white lines arcing from her right arm and down her spine to where they disappear under her leggings to travel down her leg, disrupting freckles as they go. The burn scars left over from gripping hot metal makes closing her fist fully a chore, but it was much better than the melted mess it had been before her treatment began. Across her left side is the lightsaber burns left behind by the blow that had gotten her thrown out of the window, which had led to the smattering of white scars across her left arm and down her back. Smaller lightsaber burns freckle across her shoulders and legs, barely visible, but there.

They can all be covered by clothes, but it’s the scar on her face that will never be hidden; it’s similar to her father’s hooking from her temple and missing her eye to travel down her cheek bone and stopping in the center of her cheek. It’s not a raised scar, not like her buir’s, thanks to Healer Eerin’s expertise, but it’s still noticeably pale against her darker skin tone.

Mara lets out a low sigh - one that she can feel but can’t hear - and pulls on her shirt, eyes lingering on the scar curling on the side of her face.

She’s never been self-conscious of her body - growing up around as many scars as she had had made sure that the sight never bothered her - and she'd never be shy about them in any other instant, but these are physical manifestations of the Third Brother. He left these scars, marking her for life, and it would always be him that she thought of now when she looked at her injuries - he had changed her life, changed her.

Mara sighs again, feeling the air leave her lungs, running a hand through her long hair as she turns from the mirror, then rubbing her face thoughtfully as she turns around to look at her reflection once more. She hesitates once, studying herself, before determination makes her nod. Reaching across the sink to the scissors left from removing the pile of gauze wrapped around her various injuries, she curls her fist around the cool metal, the other hand raising to grip her loose nerf tail of dark red curls.

The first cut is hard to force through the thick hair, but every snip comes easier, the nerf tail dropping lower and lower as the strands keeping it held up are cut away one by one. Until finally the resistance gives away, and Mara is left standing in front of the mirror with a handful of red hair in one hand, and gleaming blades in the other. The uneven cut of the hair that had once reached her waist is now messily shorn to barely below her jaw, longer where it frames her face then near the back of her head.

She blinks at her reflection.

It makes her look older - different, but in a good way, because this is something she chose. It feels like a little bit of control over her body has been returned to her with every soundless snip of the scissors. It makes her stand straighter, shoulders back and head raised proudly as a smile crawls across her face.

It’s with a new haircut and a grin that Mara steps out of the ‘fresher and into her room, to find her mother perched on the side of her bed, gently scrolling through the datapad on Ancient Sith runes Mara had taken from the library for some late night reading.

With a small, gentle smile, her mother sets aside the ‘pad, “The little ones have finally fallen asleep.” The older woman’s hands move through signs as she speaks, filling in the places where Mara’s damaged ears fail her. She opens her arms in invitation, and Mara falls into her embrace like she would as a little girl, curling her legs onto her mother’s lap and tucking her head under her chin. This close, sign language isn’t needed for Mara to understand her words. “I like what you’ve done with your hair, pàisde.”

“Thought it was time for a change.” Mara smiles against her mother’s neck as her hands gently card through the newly cut strands, then move to cradle her jaw, to tilt her head up once more.

Her mother’s gray-blue eyes are soft, and she presses a kiss against the scar on her brow. “I’m very proud of you, dear heart.” She says, her smile a little sad, and she trails a hand across Mara’s cheek. “As much as I loathe to send you out to fight, and I wish that you wouldn’t have to do it again, I know you’re too much our child. You held your own against a foe with much more training, and you saved lives, at a great cost to yourself.”

“Master Bant says that she’s going to try a new treatment to fix my hand.” Mara tells her, lifting the scarred hand to study the mass of scar tissue that traveled from finger to palm and made fine motor movements difficult - which made practicing Jar’Kai even more difficult than the form already was. “Apparently she got the idea from Echo to try creating some sort of neural mesh to help me heal faster.” Her mother gently takes the injured limb, slipping a roll of bacta strips from her pouch and beginning to wrap it once more, and Mara watches as the scars disappear under the gauze.

“Bant was never one to pass up a challenge,” Her màthair says in amusement, blue-green eyes sparkling, and Mara snorts, flexing her bandaged hand to test the tensity of her muscles. “Despite what our crèche masters thought, she wasn’t as innocent in our schemes as they believed she was.” She takes Mara’s other hand, lightly tracing the jagged white lines left behind by the Inquisitor’s lightning, and Mara awkwardly looks away from the sadness in her mother’s eyes.

“Can… you stay here tonight, mama?” Mara asks quietly. She can feel her mother’s surprise through the Force before it fades into gentle warmth, and she looks up to meet the older woman’s soft smile.

“Of course, dearest.”

(Later in the night, Mara - warm and cushioned by her mother’s arms around her, bringing back memories of her childhood before an extension was added to their little hut on Tatooine, back when she shared a bed with her parents - will be awoken by little feet and hands as Neve and Devas crawl into the bed with them. Mara will grumble, but without any heat, allowing her little siblings to squirm under her sheets, throwing her own arm over a giggling Devas as Neve makes her own nest along their mother’s spine.

She’ll be coaxed back to sleep, praying to the Force for her family’s safety and missing her father, who is off fighting a war while they’re safe on The Temple, but surrounded by the warmth and love of her mother and siblings.)