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Mara felt the sensation at the back of her mind a mere moment before the familiar soft snuffles that preluded the crescendo of cries that would surely follow, before it happened, like an awareness lingering there.
Blinking a few times, she stretched, careful not to disturb her husband where he lay deep in dreamland beside her. Smiling, Mara let her feet slide to the cool marble floor, tugging the blankets back up around Luke, even after so many years living here, he never did like to be cold. Silent to a degree that her childhood teachers in all things espionage would have been proud of, she took the two steps over to the crib close to the bedside.
“Oh, my love.” Mara cooed in a whisper soft voice, scooping up her heart in her arms, wrapped in a cloud soft blanket the color of the clear Naboo sky in spring.
Leia had warned her, Han had cajoled, “The sleepless nights, that’s what gets you with kids.”
But Mara loved this time, treasured it really. She was a night convor by nature, comfortable in the shadowed twilight and soft shine of the stars. Luke would surely make up for the morning, her sweet early riser. So, this time was just for her, her and her greatest joy.
Walking from the room, down a path so familiar it may have been worn into the marble under her feet, Mara reached the set of double doors and stepped through them to let the cool air wafting off the lake kiss her face.
It was high summer on Naboo, but even now she could smell the faint scents wafting on the night air of the last of the late spring flowers from the fields beyond. Warmth from the ground and baked into the walls of the house radiated enough to keep the chill from clinging to her but the cool, sweetness of the lake air was enough to keep her light sleeping clothes from sticking with heat.
A thousand tiny stars hung suspended as a backdrop to a golden moon above her and Mara rocked her precious bundle closer, breathing in that heady fresh, sweet baby smell, and let herself once again be overcoming with the wonder of it all.
What grace was this, this life she lived? Whatever had she done to be worthy of it?
And then she felt it, the familiar shimmering of starlight as if just out of sight until he stood at her very side.
“Hello, Valiant One.”
Mara smiled, turning to her left, “Father.” She let the warmth in her heart infuse her words. It was less strange, after so many years, speaking to this version of the man that had raised her. She had nearly known this starlit specter frame of his as long as she had known the other. What perhaps was stranger to her was the eternalness of him, how he never changed while she and Luke, and all the others really for that matter, grew older. It was not lost on her that she was not the child that he had first given that nickname to, so very long ago now aboard the Executer, anymore. Yet he called her it anyways, and somehow it always seemed to fit.
“How is my grandson tonight then?” He asked and Mara marveled at the look of wonder she could see through his somewhat translucent form.
“Very well.” Mara turned her body away from the railing towards her father and pulled back the blanket enough to reveal a soft, rounded face, button nose, and a shock of golden red hair. More gold than red, Mara thought to herself with a rueful, yet contented smile.
“I see there is another night convor added to the Skywalker family.” He said, brushing a gentle touch along the curve of the soft cheek. “I remember finding you out here a lot back when you were a child, looking up at the stars as if they held all the answers.”
Mara remembered those nights with a warmth in her chest, never had she thought to see such lovely stars. For all Coruscant, which was all she knew before really, glittered, it drowned out the stars with its shine.
Snapping back to the present, she heard him continue, “Though I suppose you had to name him after Obi-Wan?” he said with a mock scowl.
Mara chuckled, wrapping the blanket snuggly again. “Well, Anakin was already taken you know. We figured three Anakins might be more than the galaxy could bear.”
The starlit specter chuckled, shoulders shaking with mirth.
And Mara glanced back out towards the water, holding her son, her precious Ben, all the tighter. “And so soon after the loss…it seemed right.”
“I’m glad you got more time with him, truly.” And there was no more mockery there.
Mara didn’t know what to say at first to that. The loss…it truly was that, and such a small word for such a profound absence. She wasn’t sure she had grieved so since the loss of the one that stood beside her now. She knew she had been hard on her uncle at first, resenting the fact that he hadn’t been there for them during the war. Her cousin, Cal had seen through it all though and through him, Mara and Obi-Wan had forged a path towards forgiveness, eventual acceptance, and in time, a true and valued family member on both sides. His death had left her bereft. And then this miracle had come into her life. The name had seemed appropriate.
Plus, Anakin wore the namesake well, she thought to herself with a smile as she thought of her youngest nephew.
Eventually she said, “Is he well?”
“Very. I’m sure he’ll be stopping by some time to check in. Satine is here, you know. They are very happy.”
Mara felt herself relax a little at those words. Her uncle and aunt, Cal’s parents, reunited at last in a way they never really got the chance to be in life.
Stepping forward, her father’s shimmering form leaned to brace his elbows on the railing of the balcony, staring out at the moonlit waters. “Tell me what’s on your mind, Mara.”
And with that, Mara returned to the moment, breathing in the scents of the night and reveling in its peace. Peace…what a foreign concept to the girl that had come here and stood in the long night under these very stars for the first time so, so long ago.
“I…” Mara began haltingly, for how could one really describe all that she felt in her heart? “I suppose I just keep thinking how wonderful it is to be here. It’s almost dreamlike.” She laughed a little, adjusting Ben to sit more upright in her arms as he took in the world around him in all its beauty. “I sometimes find myself thinking that this is all a dream and I’ll wake up and…and it will be like before.”
Anakin Skywalker turned his head to regard her, studying before straightening and walking towards her and she felt the familiar strange sensation when his hands rested on her upper arms. “This peace you have, my daughter, it was hard fought for. Know that it is real by the distance you crossed to get here and know that you cannot go back by the scars that bear witness to the fight along the way.”
Mara closed her eyes, resting in the moment, and felt the truth of his words sink into her soul. “We won.” She whispered.
“Yes, my Valiant One, we did.”
When Mara opened her eyes once more, he was gone and it was just her and Ben again on the balcony. Sighing a little huff of air that caused the red gold strands of her hair to dance, Mara turned back towards the water and watched as the stars shimmered their light over the waves.
“See, Ben?” Mara asked, “Can you see the stars? See how they shine? That’s our world, and it is free. We are safe here, you and me and I love you, always.”
She brushed a kiss to the soft curl of his hair and felt the sureness of her own promise. Long, long ago, there once had been a cursed command made of this child’s life, by an evil emperor who might have sought to destroy such hopes, such peace. But now, once upon a time, there was this night, and in this night, there was peace and they were free. It was perhaps then that Mara Jade Skywalker knew to the fullest that the war was truly over, in the velvet midnight by the lake.
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When the buttercup yellow sun peaked over the horizon with its paintbrush of gentle pinks and creams to cast the lake country in all its splendor, it happened to peer through the glassy windows of a home near the shore. The warm sun smiled to find the canvas there and spread its paint brush of light to capture the golden threads of highlights in red gold hair that spilled over cream colored pillows, though careful not to get in her eyes as she slept, the night had told the sun itself of the wakeful hours enjoyed under the luminous moon as she had many a night as a cautious girl that never smiled as easily as the woman who slept now, which even dawn would not in her loveliness disturb. Instead, gentle dawn put too rosy cheeks of spring flushed softness on the child that sat cooing in his father’s arms and around the father himself, the sun drew its warmth, for all the happy memories of the boy that had played beneath its rays.