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Chapter Text

Mara felt the cold presence of her master before stepping out of the lift. She felt it as the doors opened to reveal her master, sitting atop his throne, waiting. She had gone through this process before, so she knew the routine. Step out of the elevator, kneel before her master, wait for her new commands, and depart. It had become so routine to the point where she didn’t even realize she had moved from the elevator until she felt the cold floor of the Death Star sting her knees as she knelt. As she knelt, she felt something off; she knew something was very wrong.

“Ah, my faithless hand returns to me…”

Her eyes widened as the truth hit her: her master, the emperor, was dead. The second Death Star was destroyed, and she no longer was The Emperor Hand. She began to stand, but a sudden strain in her muscles stopped her, the painful cramp running up both legs and into her back, forcing her to straighten her back painfully to face her master. “This…this a nightmare…” She said, closing her eyes to avoid the gaze of her master. “You’re dead, I-” Before she could finish, a pain like lightning danced across her spine, forcing her to bite her tongue in pain as her back was forced into an arch to face her master, who had materialized in front of her.

“Faithless child…you underestimate the power of the dark side…” Fear raced through Mara as his decaying laugh echoed from his hood. “Did you truly believe that death would part us? After everything I showed you, taught you.” Mara tried to move, tried to squirm her body around; she would crawl at this point if it only meant getting away from him.

“Your thoughts betray you my hand…”

Mara saw his hand emerge from the darkness that was his robe. As she tried to turn her head away, the decaying hands of her dead master forced her head to face him. “Did you think killing a clone would free you from me?” This close to him, Mara could feel his breath attack her skin, smell the decaying skin that clung to the emperor's body. “Skywalker has filled you with false hope…but don’t worry, I will fix that…”

Mara felt her muscles loosen, the pain subsiding in a strenuous ache. But didn’t care as her hand flew to her saber, using it to impale the emperor through the chest. That laugh from the emperor now wasn’t one of joy but one of patronization, as a parent would laugh at an unruly child. “Why must you deny your purpose child…” Mara’s eyes flew up to the hood as it fell from the emperor's head, revealing a face of decaying skin, protruding bones, and glowing, hideous red eyes.

“Your body will soon succumb to me…and no Jedi will save you from me…” Mara felt cold hands clawing up her body as she looked down in horror to see horrible nightmarish creatures clawing their way up her body, surrounding her and attempting to pull her into a void of darkness. The emperor's grip on her face kept her from falling back into the void with the many hands snatching at her. “Soon, my children…we will become one…” and then…he let go, laughing as she fell down…down…down, the only sound filling her head was the laughter of her dead master.

Mara awoke in a panic, nearly falling off her bed as she spun around, looking for any signs of danger. No emperor, no Death Star, no creepy monster. She had been right. It was a nightmare, nothing more. Exiting her bed, she looked out her window onto the vast Coruscant landscape. She was on a mission for Karrde and would be staying here for a bit. 

Exhausted but too panicked to go back to sleep, she made her way to the refresher to get an early start. As she undressed herself from her night clothes to wash herself, Mara noticed long bruises under her neck and chin. Looking closer in the mirror, she could make out the shape of long, slender fingers. She closed her eyes as she heard the emperor's words flow through her. “Soon, my child…we will become one…” No. That was a dream. It was a dream, a dream, and nothing more…she hoped.

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Mara had not been able to sleep after having her nightmare and so had decided to get an early start on the day. She made her way into her closet, pulling on her sleeveless black jumpsuit. She looked around her room for her belt, making sure she carried her blasted with her. Finally finding her belt, she clipped it around her waist and grabbed her blaster, sliding it into its holster. Before leaving her apartment, which Karrde had paid for, she glanced over at the desk sitting next to her bed and saw the lightsaber that Luke had given to her.

The lightsaber had been given to her by the Jedi master himself as a gift after their victory over Master C'baoth and Grand Admiral Thrawn. She didn’t know how she felt about the offer yet, maybe it was her old imperial instincts telling her that no gift comes without a price. But the empire was no more, and so brushing away her old impulses, she grabbed the lightsaber and hooked it in her belt, finally making her way out of her apartment and onto her airspeeder to start a new adventure.

Stepping off of her airspeeder, she arrived at the large senate building where she would be meeting a representative from a smuggler gang who would be potentially joining the smugglers alliance. As she entered the building she saw the representative, a tall Trandoshan male. Both greeted each other with a firm handshake and a smile, introducing themselves to each other. Mara couldn’t help but notice the lingering glance at her chest as they shook hands but decided it was not worth the effort it would take to kick his ass.

Mara walked and talked with the smuggler as they made their way through the senate building, only stopping when some too excited teenagers ran past them.

“Sorry!” One of them yelled as they ran down the hall to their right. Shaking her head, she turned back to the smugglers only to be crushed by an all too excited senator.

“Leia” Mara wheezed as she was pulled into a hug by the senator. “Mara! You should have told me you were coming, I would have had you over at our apartment as a guest.” Leia Organa Solo, while being the Councilor of the New Republican, was also a Jedi like her brother. Being a Jedi, Mara figured that Leia must have sensed her arrival and came here to greet her.

Looking behind Leia, she could see multiple New Republic officers standing guard, making sure nothing happened to their Councilor.

“So, what brings you back to Coruscant?” Leia asked as she hooked her arm around Mara, leading her down the hall that the children had run past just moments before.

“I’m here to meet with a potential new partner for the smugglers alliance.” She said, gesturing to the Trandoshan who was following them at a distance, giving them space to talk.

“Ah I see, I thought that was your new lover.”

Mara almost tripped as Leia’s statement hit her “No! I mean, no. He is just a potential partner in business…” She said, feeling a sudden hotness in her cheeks.

“Sure.” Leia said, winking at her as they went further down the hall. Mara wanted to shoot back with a reply but stopped herself, letting her thoughts rambled through her head as they kept walking. Why was she being so defensive about a harmless comment Leia had said? She didn’t say it to hurt her, or accuse her of anything egregious. It was a joke, something that friends do to tease each other to have a good laugh. So why had she taken it so seriously? But maybe Leia’s comments dug at one of the many deep holes the empire left in Mara, something that she wasn’t quite ready to explore yet.

Mara had been so lost in her thoughts that she wasn’t aware they had made it to their destination until she heard her name. “Mara, you alright?” She turned to look at Leia, who wore a concerned expression.

“I’m fine.” She said, smiling. It was just then when she heard it, the sound of a lightsaber swinging and hitting something. That’s when she saw him.

He wasn’t wearing his traditional Jedi robes, but a sleeveless shirt with baggy bright orange pants that must have belonged to his x-wing uniform. “Leia…” Mara said in a warning tone. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Because I wanted you to say hi to him, your friends after all.” Leia said matter-of-factly. Mara swore under her breath as she turned, getting ready to sprint out of the senate building if that’s what it took to get away fr-

“Mara?”

And there it was, that voice. Even since their first meeting she had found Luke’s voice soothing, even in those moments in the woods where she wanted to kill him, she had to admit she liked the sound of his voice. Taking a deep breath and cursing the force for being such a pain, she turned to face the master jedi. “Hello Farm boy.” She cringed at her own voice, which betrayed her true feelings of nervousness. ‘Get a grip of yourself, you were The Emperor's Hand, fucking act like it.’ She said to herself as she regathered herself. “Hello Luke.”

His blue eyes dug into her, looking her up and down, as if seeing if anything had changed since they last met. “It’s nice seeing you again Mara.” Luke said, his hand going into his dirty blond hair to inch at it. As Mara looked at him, she could see how he had changed since they last saw each other, notably he had gained a lot of muscle.

She noticed in his arms first, the muscles that were there when they first met had become more evident. She supposed constant training with a lightsaber and Jedi hand-to-hand combat would build such a physique. Mara scaned his body multiple times, trying to spot a flaw, anything she could use as an excuse to quail the feeling inside her. Unfortunately for her, or fortunately, she found nothing on the hot farm boy which she didn’t find attractive.

This was unfair to Mara, she didn’t want to feel this way, she wanted to hate him, to try and distance herself from him. But she also wanted to touch him, to feel up his chest, to run her fingers through his hair and kiss that je- NO! She screamed the word in her head, no she shouldn’t be having these thoughts, not like this and definitely not in front of so many people.

She suddenly became very self aware that she had just been staring at Luke, not saying a word, in front of a whole audience of people who had come to see the master jedi.

“Ahem, still swing your lightsaber around I see.”

The sudden realization of the possible sexual comment she had just made about the highest ranking Jedi she had ever seen washed over her, as she cringed at the clearly awkward comment she had just made to break the silence.

“Of course, I have to show why I became a Jedi master after all.” As if to prove his point he swung his saber effortlessly behind him at one the training droids, cutting it clean in half. He never broke eye contact with her as he turned off his saber and put it back into his holster on his belt.

“What happened to your neck?” The Jedi said, reaching out with his hand to touch her neck.

“Oh it’s nothing.” She said, pushing his hand away. “Slept on my hand funny and felt a mark on my neck.” The arm she had used to push away the Jedi was suddenly yanked forward, as he took a closer look at her neck.

“You choke yourself in your sleep?” He asked bluntly, his grip never hurting as he kept her still to look at the marks. “I’ll take you to se-”

“No.” She cut him off before he could finish. “No medic droids or anything like that, I’m fine, I’m still breathing, now if you would excuse me I have a job to get back to.” She pulled her arms away, or tried to, to no avail as Luke didn’t budge.

“Let go.” Mara said, annoyed

“No.” He said simply, tugging her a bit closer to him. “Not until you see someone about those marks.”

To Mara being this close to him was…a lot. Too much even. ‘This isn’t fair…I mean, I know we can all see his abs through that thin fabric…right?’ Mara thought, cursing the fact that the man who was annoying her just so happens to be a hit farm boy.

Gathering herself together, she leveled one of her classic imperial glazes at the Jedi. “Are we seriously gonna do this here? She asked, hoping the death stare would invoke some fear in the jedi to get her go. Of course, it did not, as her stare only served to puzzle the Jedi as he kept looking at her.

“Do wh-” before he could finish Mara had grabbed him and use the force to judo flip him over her, making the master Jedi fall right on his ass

Mara had exactly 2 seconds to revel in her victory because she too was pull to the ground, Luke having grabbed her ankle to make her fall as well

“You two are acting like children!” Leia yelled at the former emperor’s hand and jedi wrestled on the ground, Mara kicking and punching at Luke to get away as he attempted to pull her closer. At this point the bystanders were looking as them as if watching a pod race game, uncertain of who would be the victor

“I’m fine!” She yelled, jabbing Luke in the ribs with her elbow as she tried to crawl away.

“Then hold still so I can see!” Luke yelled, finally tugging so she was lifting onto his lap, her arms pinning him to the ground.

Mara could help but look at his arms as she grabbed them, the veins running up his muscles as he flexed under her grip. “Ok…ok.” She wheezed, tired from the struggle. “Tomorrow I will go get the marks looked at…” It was at this point she noticed something wasn’t right…

Luke's breathing had gotten shallow, as his eyes looked up at her with something she couldn’t quite place…or maybe she was willfully blind to the arousal behind the Jedi’s eyes. Fearing she had hurt him, she went to get off before being roughly pulled down by his hand arms that had broken free of her grip.

“Not yet.” He said, his voice a mixture of dominance, concern, and…a plea? Mara suddenly released what she had originally thought was his leg was definitely not that, unless he had grown a third in the past 5 minutes.

“Oh-” Mara said, embarrassed that she had done this to Luke. The turned her head to Leia, but the Jedi must have known something was amiss because she was ushering everyone out of the room “Ok that’s enough of the Jedi master show off for one day…” her voice trailed off into the distance as the door closed to the room, leaving the farm boy and the emperor’s hand alone

It took a good 10 minutes for Luke to finally be ok with Mara getting off his Lap, though the assassin still did notice a prominent bulge in his baggy pants. “I’ll um…let you finish your train…good seeing you again.” Before she could hear Luke’s response she ran out the room, filled with a feeling not of the embarrassment as she first thought but something more… carnal.

She had to admit to herself that…unfortunately…she MAY have a type for farm boys…

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Coming soon! (Probably in a week or two)