A/N: This is a sort of prequel to a post-RotJ AU I'd like to write at some point. I'm writing it as a way of working out the differences in Mara's character if she had a different upbringing, as an alternate version of her would be one of the characters. I'm also interested in the idea that Yoda might have back up plans (as suggested by his reference to 'There is another', hence the title.)

Another Other

1.

12 BBY

Mara's small form clung to the large man's shoulder as he carried her inside the dingy building. She peered through her tangled red hair to see where they were. The room, scattered with a variety of aliens and humans sipping drinks at tables and in shadowy booths, was punctuated by a long bar running down it's centre. A bulky man wiping glasses behind the counter looked up at them sourly, and Mara felt as much as saw the attention of the customers flicker towards them. Curiosity, she felt, particularly at her; the man who carried her belonged here, she did not.

"This is no place to bring your younglings," the bar man barked at them, flapping his dish-rag towards the door.

"Not mine," the man carrying her replied gruffly. She still did not know his name, for all the weeks they'd spent together now. "Merchandise. I'm meeting a buyer."

The bar keep huffed slightly but seemed mollified. Mara felt the attention from round the room drift off into disinterest.

As he carried her over to a booth in the far corner, Mara wondered at his words. Had he been lying to her all these weeks? Did he really mean her harm after all? Was he just like the others who had stolen her away before?

She felt his mind reach out to her mind to soothe her. She felt rather than heard the sense of it; trust me. That was what the Dark Man had said too. But this one felt different.

He settled her down in the darkest corner of the booth, pulling the woollen hood that had fallen off her outside from his pocket and making a valiant attempt to cover her hair with it once again. The poor man seemed utterly bemused as to what to do with a small girl – her hair hadn't been brushed since the day he'd found her. He signalled for drinks to be brought over. Only one appeared. Mara supposed 'merchandise' didn't get drinks.

They waited some time. Mara took in everything around her as her companion sipped at his drink in silence. It was so different from everything she had known. All this grime and dirt and sticky pools of some spilt drink on the table was nothing like the crisp, brightly lit rooms she had spent her entire time in the last few years. Nothing like her more distant memories either, of a place filled with warmth and love. She tried to cling to those memories, secretly, against the demands of her keepers, but they slipped further and further away all the time, wiped out a little bit more every time she had been shown to the Dark Man and he reached into her mind…

Mara shut her eyes tightly against the thought. Maybe she would have to forget the warm place if she were to forget him. Maybe she would just have to. Although that felt like letting him win in some way…

Feeling her distress, the big man looked down at her, meeting her wide green eyes, and awkwardly took her hand in some gesture of comfort. "It's alright," he said softly. "You'll be safe soon."

They both turned heads at the same time to glance at the door, even before it swung open. She could feel the approach of the newcomer even before the hiss of the door release. Someone who stood out, felt iridescent against all the other beings here. Mara found she held her breath as the door slid apart – only to narrow in confusion and disappointment. In the entrance stood a diminutive figure no bigger than herself, swathed in dark red robes with a hood drawn deeply over it's face, revealing only red electrical lights for eyes glowing from underneath. The new arrival scurried in and chattered at the bar man in a strange language. After reaching up on tiptoe to collect his drink from the bar, the small figure scurried over to their booth and clambered up onto the bench opposite them.

"A Jawa, huh?" The man beside her said incredulously. "They're not exactly common in this part of the Galaxy, you know." Mara glanced with wide eyes between the two beings as she realised this was who they had come to meet.

The creature chattered at them loudly in what sounded like a rude way, but then an entirely different voice laughed softly from under the hood. "Known well enough they are, that someone can look them up and think them plausible here. And more convenient disguise than Ewok, by far." The figure chortled, and Mara found herself suppressing a small laugh herself. It faded away as the strange artificial eyes turned on her. "So this is her, yes?" Mara felt the creatures' scrutiny pressing against her, and shrunk back against the back of the booth, quivering. But the probe against her senses did not turn into the intrusion and pain of the Dark Man, but instead fluttered lightly against her sense of herself and withdrew.

"Hm," the little creature grunted. "Strong she is, yes. Much potential. But also quite damaged, already. A risk it will be. Not part of our plans."

"Not part of my plans either, old man," her rescuer said. "This is not my war. I want no part of it."

"Yet rescue her, you did. Much risk, you took, much risk. You knew you had to." It was said lightly but there was something both accusing and mocking in his tone.

"Yes, yes I did, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret getting involved. But once I felt what she was, what they were doing to her, I couldn't just leave her." He sighed heavily. "But you have to take her from here Master Y-" he cut off the name abruptly as though remembering where they were. "I can't look after her. I wouldn't know where to start. I have no way of finding her parents, they're most likely dead. I can't protect her."

Mara felt tears welling up at his blunt appraisal of her situation. But she knew it, knew somewhere deep inside that it was true. She had lost the sense of her parents the day they had taken her, and she knew this gruff but kind man wouldn't be able to stop the Dark Man finding her and taking her back. She pushed the tears back down, deep inside her, as she'd long learned to do; crying would make no difference to her fate. The Dark Man had made that clear.

The hooded figure appraised her again, and sighed a deep, heavy sigh. "Unexpected this is."

"You have seen nothing of her? In the Force?" The man's voice dropped even lower at that last word, and she wondered what it meant.

The small figure sighed again. "Seen her I have. Seen many fates for her. But not this one. What you have done, it changes everything. Not meant to cross, were our paths."

"So you won't take her then?" There was despair in the man's voice. Mara could hear, and feel, his panic as he didn't know what to do.

The cowled figure went very still, glowing eyes becoming obscured as he glanced away in contemplation. Silence fell over the table, the sounds of low conversation and clinking glasses in the cantina reasserting themselves in Mara's ears. She felt her entire future hang in the balance.

And abruptly the choice was made, the die cast. The shadowed face turned back to them. "Take her I will. Train her. Protect her." The small figure chuckled. "Always in motion is the future. In the face of that, a back up plan a bad idea is not."

The ramp of the transport rose and sealed to the hull with a dreadful finality, the face of her nameless rescuer disappeared in a narrowing sliver until he was gone from her sight. She had gripped him tightly round the neck in a silent farewell that seemed to surprise him, and she could feel that he never expected to see her again. Her fate was set now, with this strange little creature taking her who knew where.

He had picked up a gnarled little walking stick from beside the ramp as they boarded and to her surprise leant heavily on it as he tottered forward. She looked curiously round the small space. On the outside the ship had seemed small compared to the other ships docked around it, silver with smooth sleek lines but heavily battered with age and lack of maintenance. The inside was even smaller, consisting only of the small space she was in, which crammed in a galley space, a couch come bunk and a refresher, and through a hatch at one end she could see the windows of a small one person cockpit, the small figure silhouetted against them as he fiddled with various buttons and leavers. Lights flashed on here and there and the metal flooring beneath her feet started to vibrate as the engines warmed up.

The creature returned from the cockpit, still leaning heavily on the stick. He stopped right in front of her. Looking at him face to face properly for the first time, she noted that, even though she was just six years old (she thought) herself, she was already taller than this strange creature who had taken charge of her. They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Are you really a Jawa?" she asked with narrowed eyes. She didn't even know what one of those were yet, but it seemed a good place to start.

The figure chortled with more amusement than the comment really warranted. "Jawa? No, Jawa I am not." He reached up and pushed back the deep hood, and two long pointed ears, adorned with little wisps of white hair, sprung free. They were incongruous against the dark mask beneath them, and a small hand quickly pulled that away as well. The face was green and wizened with age, but she found her eyes drawn to the large brown eyes that examined her reaction intently. "Master Yoda, am I. And what do they call you?"

"Mara. I'm called Mara. They called me Mara Jade. I think I used to have another name, but I… I can't remember it now," she admitted with some distress.

The little man nodded. "Well then. Mara you shall be."