Chapter Text
When Mara Jade Skywalker opened her eyes, she expected to find a lot but nothing could have prepared her for the reality of what apparently must be the afterlife. The Force. Life after death. Whatever one may call it.
The first thing she noticed was how all the pain had left her body. The injury on her head was gone, no blood stained her sight and the sting of the needle where Jacen had injected the poison in her thigh was not present anymore. It left a memory, nothing more.
Looking around she noticed she was lying on the ground. Beneath her was something soft and fluffy and it smelled like earth and plants. Something about it reminded her of Yavin and Jedi Praxeum but it wasn’t quite the same. Around her were flowers blooming in all possible colors and forms. She’d never been the person for plants but even Mara had to admit it looked beautiful and peaceful like little she’d ever seen before.
She tried to get a feeling for the place in the force and was welcomed by life itself. It was a wondrous, happy feeling, like every single being in the world was laughing in joy for her arrival. It was a sensation to get lost in but first she had to find out what was up and where the hell she was.
“Aunt Mara!” The voice of a young man rang through the air, coming closer but still some dozent meters away. The voice sounded like someone she should know, someone from her past, but she couldn’t quite grasp a name or face. Instead she decided to stand up, weary of any pain or discomfort that might come but fortunately it didn’t. Looking around showed her that she was standing right in the center of a beautiful, seemingly never ending meadow full of the flowers and plants she’d first noticed directly around her. There were some trees here and there, some small, some huge as if they were as old as life itself. The sky was blue and clouds were gathering on the horizon. They weren’t white or grey or blue like she would have expected, but varied in all different shades of violet and red and orange, nearly giving the impression of a sunset only that the sun was high above her.
“Aunt Mara?” The voice had come closer, hesitating right behind her and she was reluctant to turn around, still taking in her surroundings and nearly getting lost in the welcoming sensation the force gave her. But if this was the afterlife, maybe the person was someone she was supposed to know…
She turned around.
The boy standing in front of her was no older than 15 or 16, his boyish features lit with joy and sadness at the same time. He wore a simple beige tunic and loose black pants, his boots were covered in what looked like dried mud. Brown, shoulder length hair was framing his face, brown eyes were sparkling in anticipation.
“Anakin…” She all but whispered and before she knew it, the boy jumped into her arms, pulling her in a tight, crushing embrace as if he would never let go again. Mara buried her face in Anakin’s hair and took a deep, shuddering breath. After Anakin’s death it had been pure anguish for her to know she would never get to say a proper goodbye, to never be able to embrace him again, hear his voice or see his face. Having her nephew in her arms now made death all the more bearable.
“I’m sorry, Anakin…” Her voice trembled and with astonishment she noticed a single tear escaping her eyes. She couldn’t care less. “I’m so sorry, Anakin…”
He pulled back, smiling happily at her. “What for?”
She cupped his youthful face, as if he’d just crumble away if she didn’t keep in direct physical contact. “I don’t know…?” She admitted. The words had just escaped her lips, she couldn’t quite grasp the reason. “Maybe because I’ve let you die? We shouldn’t have let you go… We should have listened to Han… I don’t know.”
He chuckled, sounding quite more adult than fitted his young face. “It was my decision, Aunt Mara. And I’ve come to the realization that this mission, going to Myrkr, was kind of my destiny, you know?”
She nodded and let her hands rest on his shoulder, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by everything that had happened. “Jaina said something quite similar…”
He shrugged, grinning, and took her hand in his. “Come on, we’ve got to go!”
Mara looked around, surprised, but found nothing but nature around them. “Where to? And while we’re at it - where are we exactly?”
Anakin Solo began to drag his aunt by the hand, finding a natural path through the nature around them. Mara couldn’t quite shake off the thought that the grass and flowers and bushes yielded when the two of them walked past, like they were capable of moving by themselves. While she was still contemplating her surroundings, Anakin began to talk again. “Call it whatever you want. Maybe we became part of the Force? Some sentient beings call it heaven or nirvana but that would mean only purely good people come here. They don’t. This world or whatever - it just is, it exists, it doesn’t judge. It’s like a sandbox of infinite possibilities. Look!” He waves his hands around them and just now Mara realized that their feet were no longer walking on solid ground but they were floating meters above it. Birds and butterflies accompanied them, more of them coming by the second until they were surrounded by them, like an escort, as if they were part of a swarm.
It took Mara some minutes of fascination and slowly taking in her surroundings until she felt able to form a coherent reply. “So, everyone goes here? There are stormtroopers walking around here somewhere? Murderer? The hutts?”
He shook his head. “Those usually decide to go someplace else. You can just… I don’t know, decide you want your peace? And stormtroopers are people, too, you know?” Of course, she knew, most weren’t even bad people. “There are actually some who don’t come here… the Vong, apparently, because they are not part of the Force anymore… darksiders… and some others.”
The word ‘darksiders’ rang a bell in Mara’s mind and she suddenly felt herself drawn back to the moments before her death. The realization of having lost yet another person to the dark side. Jacen’s eyes flickering in a sickly yellow that had always been something she’d associated with Sidious when she was young. “Anakin… about those darksiders…” She didn’t know how to break the news and stopped.
Anakin let them drift down to the ground again. “Don’t worry, Jacen will find his way back. I’ve got a feeling. He’ll be back, someday.”
So, Anakin knew? Of course, he knew. There had to be some way to return from the afterlife, some way to get in contact with the living and appear as a Force ghost, right? “How can I go back? I’ve got to tell Luke, I have to see Ben, I…”
“Stop!” Anakin said, his voice suddenly stern and quite harsh. “You can’t. Not yet. But don’t worry, they will manage and sometime you’ll have the chance to see them.”
“Why?” Mara didn’t understand. There had been Jedi to appear to the living right behind their death. So why wouldn’t she?
“You’re not ready.” He hung his head, looking defeated. “You didn’t expect your death. You came here right from the middle of your life, you have people you cling to. It can be dangerous to go back if you still cling so much to life, you know?” She didn’t, but this seemed to be nothing to argue about, so she let it go. They had arrived on a small hill. There was a small cottage on top, huge glass windows framing one side of the building, on the back she could see a small wood that somehow reminded her of the forest moon of Kashyyyk, just smaller. There was a garden full of flowers and what looked like all kinds of small cultivated fields with crops growing there.
“Where are we?” Mara asked. She felt strangely pulled forward, as if the house was somehow calling for her.
Anakin started to walk towards the building, smiling brightly. “This is home! Well, the home I’ve decided to imagine for myself. Come on, you’ve got to meet someone!” And he started running back up to the door, looking again like the boy she had watched grow up. And let walk towards his own death… She tried to shake off the feeling of sadness and anger at herself, as apparently Anakin himself didn’t hold any grudges and seemed quite content with wherever they were.
Mara followed her nephew up a narrow path paved with stones of different sizes and colors. The wildlife around her looked and felt amazing, buzzing with vitality and hadn’t she known better she would have thought she wasn’t dead at all.
So this was death, right? A realization hit her full force right then and there: She wouldn’t be able to see her son for a very, very long time. Luke wouldn’t kiss her tomorrow morning when he’d leave their bed to go meditate. She wouldn’t be able to ruffle his hair, smell his skin, pull him back to bed to stay there just a little bit longer before another busy day at the praxeum began. She would never teach again, would never fly her X-Wing and emerge herself to the battle net and feel her fellow Jedi surround her.
“Look who’s there!” Anakin’s happy voice broke her thoughts and made her look up. Before she could even realize what happened, Mara found herself in a tight, furry embrace from someone growling and howling deafeningly in her ears.