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lo-55 · 4 years

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Tilt The Hourglass

Summary : "Enough." Said a voice from the Holocron. "The Sith will not be destroyed! You cannot change what we have done! You will suffer-"

"Enough." Said another, without anger. "The balance must be restored. It will tip too far. Too much pain, and a galaxy a sore in the soul. More must be done!"

Enough. Maul thought, sheltered in the arms of his rival. Enough. It’s over.

It isn't.

Maul is no longer a sith.

He had not been one in decades, now.

He had not been a sith since the death of Savage. Perhaps he had never been a true sith at all. His master hadn’t taught him much outside of combat. He could not produce force lightning, and his understanding of the spiritual aspect of their order was limited to what little had been necessary to encourage his hatred of jedi and what he’d needed to know to enhance his abilities as an assassin.

He’d carried that hatred, and the hatred of all the sith that had come before him, their ashes still fresh in his mind some days. With their own agony stacked on top of his own it had been easy to nurse his grudge as long as he had.

Few times in his life had Maul been as elated as he had been when he’d learned Kenobi yet lived. An unanswered grudge was like an untreated wound, something to fester and rot inside his chest. The chance to end their decade old dance drove him to Tatooine, where they’d first crossed paths all those years ago. Ezra, his dear(if reluctant) apprentice played his part perfectly, and Maul did nothing to keep him from leaving, save promise to see him again. He intended to keep that promise. The shattered remnants of two holocrons were warm enough in his pocket that he could feel the heat where flesh met metal. He knew; today was a great ending.

He wasn’t expecting the pale blue light to slice through his hilt. He wasn’t expecting the smell of burnt flesh or the pain in his chest.

He thought he would win. He thought it would be Kenobi’s ending.

The biggest surprise was the arms that wrapped around him, saving him from falling in the sand. Warm, and careful. The shards in his pocket pulsed. A thousand Sith hissed phantom words at him. A thousand Jedi hummed ghostly thoughts.

He stared up at Kenobi. His hair had gone silver, but his eyes were the same bright blue Maul had known for twenty years. Longer. Twenty? Thirty?

Gods, how old had they become?

How old was the person Kenobi protected? For a jedi to go so far for one person, when they were forbidden their attachments-

Well. Kenobi had never been very good at that part, had he?

They were both poor examples of their orders.

It was enough to make Maul laugh, a hacking, wet thing that resulted with blood in his mouth and his body screaming with pain.

“The boy,” Maul croaked. “Is he your ‘chosen one’?” The jedi in the holocron sang louder.

Kenobi watched him, his blue eyes sad. “He is.”

Why sad? He’d finally dealt the final blow to his enemy, to the man who killed his master, to the man who stole his love, and left carnage in his wake. Why would he be sad to have his vengeance?

Jedi.

“He will destroy the sith,” Maul could see it in his mind's eye, in flickers of the Force. The Sith in his pocket hissed louder in rage. Maul wanted to laugh in their faces. A Grand Plan, passed from one to the other. A success to end in failure!

A green lightsaber, so like the one that Kenobi had wielded against him. A dark cloak, ragged breathing, and an explosion that will rock the galaxy to its core.

And at last, Maul’s own master, falling to his death just as Maul had so long ago. Poetic.

“He will avenge us.” The both of them, tormented by Sidious, by the sith. Both of them pushed to the brink, until all that was left was the two of them alone in the desert. Maul grasped the shards in his pocket with the hand that didn’t reach for his rival. He squeezed them with all of his strength, the corners biting into his palms until a voice snarled far off.

Enough. It said. The Sith will not be destroyed! You cannot change what we have done! You will suffer-

Enough. Said another, without anger. The balance must be restored. It will tip too far. Too much pain, and a galaxy a sore in the soul. More must be done!

Enough. Maul thought. Enough. It’s over.

Maul grasped at Kenobi as the darkness crawled closer. The light of the twin suns dawning crested Kenobi in a halo of light, and left Maul, again, in the shadow.

He let out the last breath of his life and crushed the holocron shard’s to dust.

A green head poked into view.

Maul stared up at her.

The sky above her head was blue and wide, with puffy pink clouds streaking across it. A familiar face and a familiar sky.

“Kilindi?”

Was this his fate? To face those he’d killed in death?

Yet, she did not look as she had when he had given her the most merciful death he could manage under the circumstances. She was younger. Her cheeks were fuller, and her head tails were shorter and the stripes were less distinct. Her eyes were wide and worried.

“Oh good,” she smiled at him and sat back on her heels. “I thought you might have had your brain scrambled. Trakor threw you pretty hard.”

Maul blinked dumbly up at her.

Trakor. An instructor of the academy their first six years, before Meltch Krakko had come out of ‘retirement’. He was just as brutal as the mandalorian. He hadn’t thought of either of them for a long time.

Over the years Maul had almost forgotten him and the mandalorian, so full was he with hate for others more deserving of his ire.

(He would deny it until his dying breath, but Maul tried not to think of Orsis. Of Kilindi and Daleen, and their bodies in his arms and blood on his hands. )

(Oh. Wait. He’d had his dying breaths)

(...He would still deny it)

“Is that so?” he sat up slowly, his whole body aching. He drew his legs up.

His legs. His actual legs, not the mechanical ones he’d had for years. Maul poked at his thighs. He grasped his knee cap between his forefinger and thumb and wiggled it back and forth. He’d been very flexible as a child. His hands were so small, his fingers were short, and calloused but they missed several scars. His arms were hidden by the long sleeves of an Orsis academy uniform, but they too were too short, and too skinny.

“Uh, Maul?” she asked lightly, her smile dropping into concern.

Trakor appeared over her shoulder and pushed her aside briskly.

“Up, boy. I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“He blacked out,” Kilindi argued. “He could be concussed!”

When Trakor reached for him, Maul bared his sharp teeth on instinct. Trakor scowled at him.

“Hold still,” he ordered gruffly. Maul clenched his fists, but didn’t lash out when Trakor pulled out a light and flicked it into his eyes. Maul had hated the man. He’d hated this place, and how he’d been forced to make himself lesser to pass his lessons. Maul loathed having to hold back, but he would not lie. The skills had served him well later in life.

“I’m fine,” he said firmly.

“Quiet. You’re going to medical.”

“I’m fine,” Maul insisted, scowling at him. He was fine! Just dead. Maybe. Or hallucinating? Had it all been some kind of horrible vision?

No, surely not. He had had vision through the force. None of them were like that. Not even the memories of the fallen sith, clawing their way through his skull.

“I wasn’t asking.”

Trakor grabbed him by the back of his shirt like he was a misbehaving youngling and forcefully dragged Maul towards the door. Maul was in the middle of trying to claw his arm off, unwilling to out himself as a force user just yet, when Kilindi fell into step with them and he scowled and stopped.

It was… surreal.

Trakor was brutal, and Meltch Krakko had been even more so. He had been the bane of his existence for years. He had set Maul up to be taken as a slave, for the crime of being Forceful. Maul had killed him, and years later Maul had ruled the very organization that Meltch had belonged to.

If anyone had bothered to bury him after Maul left Orsis, Meltch would have rolled in his grave.

The thought was enough to make him smile. Kilindi looked even more concerned.

Maul let Trakor drag him to medical and drop him in front of a droid that Maul only vaguely remembered. Most medical droids were the same. Logic minded and professional, without a hint of bedside manner. As if Maul had ever been exposed to such things. They were for weaker creatures than him.

He answered each question, with only a few stumbles. He couldn't answer what day it was, or who was the chancellor, and he didn’t recall the fake surname he’d been given for his time training.

The droid declared him concussed, and sent him to rest in his dorm for the time being. Krakko, who actually looked mildly guilty, let Kilindi take him back. Maul was reminded that Mandalorians had a strange value for children.

Maul followed Kilindi through half forgotten halls.

She was small. So small. Not the tall young nautolan who had died with that sardonic smile.

She was still taller than Maul was.

Sidious had lied about Maul’s age when he enrolled him. The headmaster had been willing to look the other way, but they had to say something to other instructors and the students. They’d said he was eleven, three years older than the truth. The year he’d killed her Kilindi had plotted to throw him an eighteenth birthday party. She had been just shy of nineteen.

As far as most people were concerned Maul was just very small for his age, especially for a Zabrak. He’d learned his true age only decades later, from Mother Talzin.

They stopped at the barracks.

One day, when he was top of his class, Maul would be awarded his own dorm. For now he shared with the others. Only Kilindi had a private room, a perk of being Trezza’s ward.

Trezza.

Trezza had been one of his master’s few acquaintances to show Maul any hint of care or companionship. He had respect for him even when he was young. Respect that Sidious had never once shown him.

Maul had to stop his fists from clenching at his side. He looked up at Kilindi.

“I am okay. You don’t need to watch me.”

Kilindi kept her dark eyes on him, her striped tendrils hanging around her shoulder. He had missed her.

“I do. If you’re concussed you might die.”

Maul flashed her a grin with his teeth. “I’m too stubborn for that.”

Kilindi still looked worried, but she had learned even this early in their relationship that Maul truly was one of the most stubborn people alive.

Reluctantly she left him in the barracks.

Maul laid back on the hard bunk and tried to find some sense in the galaxy.

Daleen sat with them at breakfast in the morning, and followed he and Kilindi onto one of the outdoor training balconies.

Maul was banned from training until he’d been cleared by the medical droid, but he still planned on at least watching practice. Kilindi was tough and strong and fast, and while Daleen would never be a warrior she was dangerous in her own way. Maul wondered if she really was a lost princess, or something similar. He’d never actually found out before. He just followed Sidious’ orders. No matter how much it cost him he did as he was told. He had belonged to his master truly and wholly now. He was no apprentice. His hopes of being one were misplaced and misguided. He was just a tool for Sidious. A knife in the dark for him to loose on his enemies.

He’d been such a fool. A young, ignorant child. One who had thought that if he only worked hard enough, if was only fast enough, skilled enough, smart enough, he might earn his masters respect. His affection.

He was a fool.

Maul watched Kilindi toss Daleen onto the practice mats. They were just thick enough to keep permanent damage from being done to students. He remembered them well. He’d been thrown into them time and time again, and thrown others onto them in turn. They were well worn with blood, sweat, and tears. Orsis had stood for years. Theirs was not the first class to walk its halls or spill blood upon its floors. Likely, they would be the last.

Maul had killed well over five hundred people that night in the future. The past.

His past and his future were one and the same. The Force had twisted his existence in on itself, curving what had been and what would over and over each other.

While Maul may not understand how it happened, he stood in the Orsis Academy again. It was not destroyed. His-

His friends were not dead.

Not yet, but his master would order him to kill them, in six years time.

There was another problem. Maul’s master.

Over the years Maul had learned many things. He thought he could keep his master from cottoning on too soon to what had occurred, but the fact of the matter remained that eventually Sidious would notice something was different about his apprentice.

Eventually he would want answers.

Eventually Maul would not be able to stop himself from trying to kill the man.

He had taken everything from Maul. His childhood. His future. His brother-

Savage.

Savage still lived. On Dathomir, being groomed as a slave for the Nightsisters. As long as he lived.

Maul started prowling around the arena where Kilindi was showing Daleen how to properly throw someone over your hit. It was all about leverage. Maul was small like this. He would need to consider that too when he started fighting. His limbs were short and weak. He was small and untested. He would have to change the way he fought. That was fine. He’d never had the raw muscle of Savage.

He would go to him. In time. When he could manage it without getting the both of them killed.

During his time studying what few sith and even jedi artifacts he could get his hands on, and his time devouring Nightsister lore he had learned different ways to shield his mind. Ways that would arouse far less suspicion that the iron walls he was used to constructing to protect himself. Hopefully those methods would keep Sidious from looking too close at the lurking ocean of animosity inside him.

At this age Maul still did not hate the man.

He admired him. He wanted only to please him.

A fool indeed.

“I am prepared to lose what I most value,” Sidious had told him before Hypori and his final test there. “So must you be to become a sith. You must be ready to lose your own life in order to win.”

Maul felt Exhilarated. He was determined to prove he was the best apprentice in the history of the sith.

He’d nearly died. He’d nearly gone mad.

Still could he feel the cold stone of the cave where he dueled his master. He fell against the wall, his body burning with rage and infection, his injured leg a source of constant agony. He struggled to breath. Even the Darkside could not banish his fever.

Still could he hear Sidious howling with laughter. "I saw your weakness long ago. Your doubts in your own abilities. Your doubts in my teaching. Your inability to embrace the dark side. And that is why, over these long years, I have secretly trained another apprentice."

Maul had stared hard at Sidious. He hadn’t wanted to believe him. He hadn’t wanted to trust the taste of betrayal on his tongue or the coursing anger in his veins.

"Or, poor Maul. All he ever wanted was a friend. Does it please you to know I have another apprentice? Does it make you feel less alone?"

Breathless and in pain Maul had said, "More than one apprentice... is against rules of the sith."

"You are right," Sidious said with a grin. "A spark of intelligence, at last. My second apprentice is on the other side of the planet. He conquered all of the assassins sent after him. He only sustained a flesh wound. He is healthy. He is strong. Unlike the pathetic weakling I see before me."

It was then that Maul realized his opponents had not really been the assassin droids. He thought of all the punishment he had endured over the past month, and then of the unending punishments of his entire life. He thought of his true opponent, the unseen adversary, chosen by Sidious to become a Sith Lord. Maul felt robbed of his past and future. And then a rage unlike anything he had ever felt before swelled through him. The rage was so overwhelming he thought it might consume him.

No. He had thought, a boy of only seventeen, I can direct it. My rage will consume my enemy. It will consume my master.

Glaring at Sidious, Maul saw the true face of his enemy. Sidious snickered.

"Can you understand? Focus. If there can be only one apprentice, then one of you must die. Who do you think I have chosen to die, Maul?"

He’d attacked. He’d lost, been beaten soundly, and even at the end he’d bit the hand that had fed him, sinking his sharp teeth into Sidious’ human skin. He could still taste his blood if he tried.

Maul wished he had killed him then.

His thoughts carried him to the voices of the holocron he’d destroyed. There was an imprint on his palm now, two pointed scars. One triangular, one square. They were burned into his skin.

You cannot change what we have done. You will suffer-

No.

The Sith had taken everything from him once already. He would not allow them to do it again.

He could not take on his master yet, but perhaps he could buy himself time. With the mind guarding techniques he’d learned he could keep Sidious from realizing exactly what had happened, but he would need more than that. He tried to think.

Daleen managed to slip Kilindi over her shoulder at last. Force. Maul hadn’t realized how much he missed them.

He would not kill them again. Not for Sidious. He would kill no one for that man.

Last time it had happened because Meltch Krakko had sold him out to the Nightsisters, and to slavers from Rakkata. If he could prevent that from happening perhaps he could prevent the massacre. To do that he either needed to get better at hiding his force abilities, or keep Krakko from coming to Orsis in the first place. That would irritate his master as well, who had wanted Krakko to teach Maul all along.

Maul paused his steps.

He liked that option more, but it would be more difficult to pull off.

How could he keep Krakko from coming back to the Academy? If Maul recalled he’d left to join the Mandalore civil war. Death Watch.

After he’d taken over Mandalore Maul had looked into its past. The Mandalorians were powerful warriors, who had gone toe to toe with the Jedi order in the past. His own Mandalorians had even risked themselves to rescue him when Sidious had taken him away. They hadn’t needed to. He didn’t expect them to.

Could he really betray them?

Maul looked down at his small hands.

The men and women who had been under his command were all his age or younger. The only ones older were Vizla, who he’d killed, and a handful of others who had also caused him problems. He knew that Mandalorians valued children. They would not harm the people who had made up Maul’s Death Watch.

With that small comfort in mind he began to spin his plan.

“Kilindi,” he called, interrupting the girls spar. It was a ‘free day’, a day where trainees were free to pursue their own specialities, or do supplemental work for classes they had trouble with. The Nautolan looked over at him, her dark eyes bright.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to look up some current events.”

“Oh, I’ll come with,” Daleen volunteered eagerly. She was sweaty and bruised. Her dark hair stuck to her head. Maul wondered how she could stand the feeling.

“Why?” Maul asked with a frown. He knew they had been friends, once, but they had only known each other for a little while here.

“Well, I know more about what’s going on in the galaxy than either of you two,” she said reasonably. “And I know how to sort through information better.”

Maul wanted to argue with that, but at this age he was more of a warrior than anything else. If he suddenly knew all about slicing and reading under the lines, and researching things he wasn’t supposed to know it would be more than a little suspicious.

“What are we looking for?” Kilindi asked. The three of them fell in step together and walked towards the computer labs. It felt natural. It felt right.

It was enough to make Maul sick with grief and anger.

He pushed those feelings down for now.

“Mandalore.”

“Mandalore?” Daleen cocked her head. Her dark hair fell across her cheek. “Why?”

“Why not?” Maul retorted. She made a face at him, and he loosened, just a little bit. “There’s conflict there. I want to know what’s happening. Mandalorians are good fighters.”

“We used to have a mandalorian instructor,” Kilindi said helpfully. “He left to fight in the civil war a few months before you came.”

That would help him set up a timeline.

“Who is the Mand’alor?” Maul asked, looking from one girl to the other.

“Depends on who you ask,” Daleen said unhelpfully. “There’s two factions. The True Mandalorians, and the Death Watch. Oh, and I guess there’s New Mandalorians too, but they aren’t doing much yet.”

“Pacifists,” Maul said, wrinkling his nose. He had respect for the mandalorians, but not for that sect. They had gutted their own culture in the worst possible way.

They entered the lab and took the far terminals in the back. Maul let Daleen take the main chair while he sat to her left. He checked the date, for all the good it would do him.

Most of what he knew of the Mandalorian Civil War came from the Death Watch, and his people there. Most of them would be children now, and were only repeating their parents exploits, or what parts they’d had as young teenagers. Rook Kast in particular liked to tell him about the history of her people on long travels to their allies.

She would be an infant by this point. Maul wondered if they would see each other again.

Daleen flicked through articles, which only so helpful, but they gave him a timeline at least. Maul tapped his fingers along his thigh. His thigh that he could feel because it was real, and he still wasn’t used to that. It was overwhelming sometimes. He’d gotten only vague sensation through his prosthetics, and though he had increased it through the force it wasn’t the same.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Kilindi teased, poking his cheek. “You’re thinking too hard.”

Maul scowled at her, but didn’t swat the touch away like he instinctively wanted to. He knew she meant no harm to him. Even if he didn’t, the Force told him as much.

“What are you thinking of?” Daleen asked, watching him out of the corner of her eyes.

Maul considered his answer. How could explain what he was going to do, or why he was going to do it to the girls? He couldn’t tell them the truth. That would be insane. He halfway thought he was insane but-

Kriff it.

“There’s something I need to do. Someone I need to contact, but I needed to make sure I wasn’t too late.”

“Well that’s vague and unhelpful.”

Maul shot Kilindi a baleful look. She smiled back at him.

“I didn’t say we wouldn’t help you. I just wanna know what we’re doing.”

“You don’t have to help me. And you have no reason to,” he added pointedly.

Kilindi shrugged.

“I want to. Daleen?”

“Same,” she nodded quickly. “And if you’re really gonna be weird about it you can pay us back later. Think of it as owing us a favor.”

From anyone else Maul probably would have denied it on principle.

From the two of them, he agreed with only a bit of hesitation.

~ ~

#Darth Maul #Time Travel #fix it fic #Kilindi Matako #Daleen (Star Wars)#Star Wars #star wars the prequel trilogy

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herbalinz-of-yesteryear · 11 months

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Last Photo Before Graduation

I said they were more than just besties.

Daleen and Kilindi, in 39 BBY.

Details and easter eggs ⬇️ A giggly hearty thank-you goes to @aftergloom for note inspo eheheh

If anyone’s interested in the instax photo frame, I put up two versions on my Ko-fi, one with frame background color and one without. Feel free to use for your own character stuff ^^ The files are without the constellation signs and Tarot (which are related to the specific characters, here with K and Daleen), if you want them to be added to your character’s specification, buy me a cuppa;)

#kilindi matako #daleen #the wrath of darth maul #orsis academy #darth maul #star wars fanart #sketch dump #digital art #sketches #instax #the last summer before high school is over #‘‘meatball is the bae’’

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lo-55 · 4 years

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Tilt The Hourglass Ch. 3

Maul was at Orsis for six months when the inevitable finally occurred.

He felt it.

The dark shadow that haunted his nightmares, the cold hands left so many scars on his skin. It was his childhood ruined, his future stolen. His brother dead in his arms and every pain he’d ever endured.

Sidious had come to Orsis.

Maul ended up with his back on the ground, looking up at Daleen of all people. He wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised that she’d actually flipped him.

He could only barely focus on her and Kilindi offering him a hand up. He could sense his master growing closer.

It was the feeling of old wound preparing to open, a sickness creeping back into his lungs. The clarity that he’d felt when he returned dimmed with it, leaving shadows at the corners of his eyes.

Maul swallowed thickly and stood again, taking his position in the ring opposite of Daleen.

She looked uncertain, but when he nodded at her she threw a punch and ducked the kick he aimed at her head in return.

Maul didn’t go easy on her. He was not a kind person, and he would not do her the disservice of mercy. If it came to a real fight no one else would hold out on her. So he wouldn’t either, for her own survival if nothing else.

That said, he did not break her arm when he caught her third punch, only twisted it enough for her wince before he let her go. He was not a fan of self control, and he had always chafed at the shackles of patience and secrecy that sith were forced to be subservient to, but the years had made him good at it.

He knew how to hide. He’d survived for eighteen (nineteen? Twenty?) years after the Empire rose and he was forced to go underground. He had gotten good at hiding and slipping away, and killing anyone who got too close to him.

‘The Shadow’ indeed.

He could not hide from Sidious here. Here he had to bow his head and scrape and suffer when the man finally deigned him worthy of his tutelage.

It’s a near thing to keep his lip from curling and his sharp teeth baring at Daleen, who’s done nothing to earn his wrath besides tease him goodnaturedly.

He bows out of the training as soon as Trezza appears on a balcony, with Sidious at his side.

Master. Maul forced himself to think. In case his thoughts are too loud. In case they’re too quiet and Sidious goes listening closer. My master is here.

He tasted bile and swallowed it down as he came to a stop in front of the pair. He could remember easily how deeply he was expected to bow when Sidious came for him, and at what angle. It would not save him a beating, and he was hurt for his successes as much as his failure’s, but he would not go knocking for punishment.

The Force hummed around him, shadows flickering further in his vision. Sidious always loomed so high above him.

Full grown Maul would be taller than him. That didn’t change the fact that Sidious’ shadow always fell on him.

He kept his hand from clenching and his face carefully blank.

“Master,” he said respectfully, and offered no other pleasantries. He was not raised to offer small talk. ‘How was your flight?’ ‘Did you enjoy the view?’ ‘I hope you’re well.’.

“My boy,” his master’s voice lacked the sickly sweet sound it took on when he was a senator. Here he was merely a wealthy merchant, who was putting a hefty investment in his future body guard. “I trust your studies have been going well.”

Maul’s gaze darted momentarily to Trezza. He had punishment them for their truancy, and praised them for taking first in class, one each. He in combat, Kilindi in survival, and Daleen in espionage. Had he told Sidious of their wandering? Even if he hadn’t, the man probably already knew.

Anxiety spiked, and he twirled the incident and the compitition around in his mind, letting it fall into a mist over the darkest secrets. Those stayed in a little ball, sucked into a iron sphere at the center of his being. So deep in the shadows they’d never be found. So far from the surface Maul started to forget them.

He held them there while he nodded, slowly. “They have, master.”

“Good, good. Come along. I have need of you this weekend.”

Sidious motioned for him to come forward. Maul obeyed without hesitation. He could not see his Master’s eyes, not through the high tech goggles he wore as a blind mind. Sidious said he could see shapes and colors and little else. He moved his long stick back and forth before him, letting it clack along obstacles in their path and avoiding him.

Sidious always had been an excellent actor. Maul, still a child, had much yet to learn from him.

The pair of them walked the long halls of the facility in silence until they came out on a landing pad where Sidious’ small ship was sitting. The two boarded.

Maul cast a glance around him and was startled to see the remnants of the spider legged droid that had raised him sitting in the corner. It wasn’t moving. It was still destroyed, just as it had been when he’d last seen it.

Maul knew better than to ask, and Sidious offered him no information.

They took off. A droid piloted the ship, one Maul recognized as well. It had served Sidious as long as Maul had known him. Sidious told him once, ten years in the future, that the droid had belonged to his own master before him. Maul had never seen the sith master in person. For much of his life he hadn’t even known he existed. The rule of two was supposed to be absolute.

The existence of Plageius should have cemented inside Maul that Sidious didn’t really see him as an apprentice, but a placeholder. He had a new one as soon as Maul fell into that foul shaft, and as soon as he could he replaced that one, too, with a more powerful apprentice.

Maul had tried to warn Dooku. Had tried to recruit him and-

His mind swirled, tamping the thoughts under a rug and replacing them with musings far safer. His practice in the yard this morning. A misstep he’d made that had cost him a clean fight. Mistakes he’d made in a slicing test earlier that week that he needed to amend.

“Would you like to know where we are going?” Sidious asked. He took his vision goggles off and set them on a shelf nearby. The cane went with them. His elaborate senate robes were handing beside it. Two disguises, and a dark lord stood before Maul.

Maul chewed on his words before he voiced them.

“I will go where you require, master.”

“Is that all?” Sidious looked at him, his brows raised. One day they would be silver, and his rust colored hair would grey.

Any answer would have been wrong, so Maul had answered wrong.

“It would be good to know, so I might prepare. But regardless I will succeed at any tast you would have of me.”

“You assume it is a task for you?”

Maul flinched when Sidious raised his hand, but didn’t dare try to block that harsh lightning when it struck. Only the smallest hiss of a cry came from his mouth when he dropped to the ground convulsing.

The pain lanced through his body and whited out his mind momentarily.

Maul looked up at him from the floor, trying to catch his breath. Anger and pain coursed through him in time with the frantic beating in his chest.

“I ap-pologize,” he bit out. Blood filled his mouth. He’d bit his lip at some point.

I should know to keep from biting my own tongue by now.

Sidious didn’t bother to respond to that. He motioned for Maul to rise, which he did with a small struggle. His hands were shaking minutely.

“We go now to Kalakar Six. There is a group of darksiders there. The Prophets of the Darkside. Kill no one unless ordered. While I discuss important matters with their High Priestess you will train in the lands outside their settlement. A pair of assassin droids will hunt you through the terrain.”

Maul bowed shakily. He grit his sharp teeth together. Was he just a dog on a leash to his master?

A foolish question. Of course he was. An attack dog to be set upon his enemies, with his sharp teeth.

Had he ever been anything more to the man?

“Yes, master,” Maul said simply.

Sidious went to the pilots chair, and left Maul to try to remember where he would be expected to sit. Had it really been so long since he’d seen his master?

Of it had, it had been-

He sat on the bunk in the back of the small compartment.

This wasn’t one of Sidious’ luxury ships, nor was it meant for battle, although Maul could still see where weapons had been added and shields upgraded. It wasn’t a bad ship. It would take them safely from one place to the other, and should they need neither of the pair inside was helpless.

When they landed on Kalakar Six there was a small contingency of locals waiting for them. Humans, most of them, led by a dwarf.

Maul stayed behind his master, not hiding but certainly trying to avoid bringing attention to himself. He kept his dark hood pulled up over his head, but that didn’t stop the eyes of the other darksiders from landing upon him.

He stayed in his masters shadow until Sidious dismissed him to run off into the lava fields, with two assassin droids on his tail. They were programmed not to kill him, but to maim him.

He’d had enough time in his body that he wasn’t tripping over his own limbs. Shorter and weaker than he was used to, and legs that could break and not be pieced back together easily.

With a frown set firmly on his face Maul made his way into the smoldering heat, the dark side swirling around him like a familiar cloak he’d worn all his life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Things stayed that way for well over a year.

Every few months Sidious would come for him, and take Maul off world for some horrible, grueling training. Maul would lock up his memories as hard as he could and hide it under more recent feelings and emotions the way he’d learned on Malachor.

He had to keep Sidious from learning what he knew.

It meant that every time the man was to visit Maul was a bundle of nerves that nothing could unwind, and when he returned he was bitter, full of spite, covered in injuries and more relieved than he could ever properly voice.

Somewhere in the second year since his return, his third year at the academy, he had stopped sleeping in the barracks.

It wasn’t a conscious decision, it wasn't even his decision.

He came back from a venture with his master. A return to Malachor had put him to the biggest test yet. He’d had to suffer, and relive the death of every sith that come before him. He had lived the battle through the eyes of all that had perished there, their ashes burning in his nose, mouth, and lungs.

Their anger filled him and twisted into a familiar hate that skittered through his skin before it sang in his veins.

Sidious had offered him a single word of praise, and beat him soundly.

By the time they landed again on Orsis everything hurt. He knew his ribs were broken, and he was bruised everywhere at once. One of his eyes was swollen nearly shut. He’d been given no bacta. The pain would be good for him, Sidious claimed.

He walked stiffly from the ship to the doors of the academy, and was met in the hallway by Kilindi and Daleen.

Kilindi had taken one look at him and frowned.

“I killed my masters,” she said quietly.

Maul grimaced. “Don’t.”

She didn’t argue. “The boys, those Rodian friends of yours? They were planning on causing trouble tonight. Come stay with me.”

“I don’t need your protection,” he snapped. His temper was already frayed. He’d spent the entire time shoving down everything he was, wallowing in foreign anger and choking on pain. Now that the hiding was done he felt cracked and raw and other peoples feelings were twisting against him. Anger in the training hall, fear in the computer labs, lust from one of the higher dorms and some of the teachers were drinking. The girls worry brushed against him, soft fingers against open wounds.

“I know you don’t need it,” Kilindi frowned at him. “But I don’t like to see you hurt, Maul. You’re my friend.”

“Our friend,” Daleen cut in. She came to Maul’s side and lay a very careful hand on his shoulder. His lip curled in a snarl. He wasn’t weak. He didn’t need her to treat him like he was glass. He was durasteel and fire and-

“It will make us feel better if you stay with us,” Daleen cut him from his thoughts. She squeezed his shoulder. “Humor a girl, won’t you?”

Through the rawness their warmth shone through.

Maul nearly choked. He’d never felt-

“Okay.”

His voice sounded hoarse. Like he’d been screaming. He probably had been.

The girls made their way to Kilindi’s room, in the far hallway. Maul let them lead him there.

The halls felt longer that night, and darker too. It was not in a way that comforted him, though he was a creature born of shadow and hate.

Kilindi’s calloused hands helped him pull off his tunic while Daleen fetched a bacta pack. Maul didn’t fight either of them. He let the pair smear the cold, sickly sweet smelling goo across his chest and back. Even though it was hard to see where he’d been injured through the intricate patterns on his skin, the girls found where it hurt without being told.

Kilindi had a good suite here. She was Trezza’s ward, of course.

Her bed was wide and fluffy, and a desk near it held her personal things. Holo’s, data pads, and even pieces of flimsy she liked to fold into complex animals and intriguing shapes. She had a talent for the arts. There was a couch against another wall too.

In one corner she had a big soaking tub under a faucet, instead of the common showers that the rest of them used. Her wardrobe was open, and her uniforms were crammed, crumpled, into the bottom of it instead of hung up neatly. A pair of night vision goggles dangled from one of the hooks in it.

There was a tank of fish in the other corner. It was barely big enough for the little silver things that swam inside of it, and it cast an odd glow through the room.

When the bacta was applied and covered he rose to go to the barracks, but was instead herded to the couch.

He humored the girls, as Daleen asked.

Maul lay on the couch while the girls lay on the bed, and the lights went out. Maul watched the fish swim through their dark light, silver flickering forward and back as the darkness closed in on him. The bacta warmed on his skin. The girls breathed easier.

He closed his eyes and let their steady presence sooth him enough to sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sidious came again.

He had a castle on the planet.

Maul was summoned to it frequently, and he knew the long passages better than even Sidious did yet. In the years to come he would spend much time here. Weekends, and entire months on occasion, toiling away for scraps of approval or praise and taking any punishment as a lesson, even when he didn’t know what he was being taught besides how to shore up his anger and fear.

He was already rather good at that.

Maul didn’t need to follow the droid that had fetched him from the academy but he did all the same. It’s metal gleamed faintly in the light from high arches of glass. It had been cleaned recently.

Maul chewed on the fact that Sidious took more care with droids than he ever had with his apprentice, and treated them more cordially to boot.

Maul took the bitterness in his chest and wrapped it around the little piece of him he’d started to store Kilindi’s strength and Daleen’s cleverness inside of.

Not for the first time he thought of the jedi. Jinn and Kenobi, Skywalker and Tano. They’d had such faith in eachother. So much trust and care. They would fight and die and kill for one another, even when the other was weak or dying. Years after and he could still remember the look on Kenobi’s face when Jinn dropped to the ground. Blue that burned with rage and grief.

Maul was well aware that as soon as he lost his use Sidious would cast him off, if not kill him outright. He would not lift a finger to protect or avenge him.

Familiar rage welled up inside of his chest.

Jedi called themselves guardians and peace keepers. They preached about kindness, compassion, and protecting the weak, but where had they been when he was being tormented and forged into a tool with no will of his own? Where were they when he was carving his way through warm flesh, screaming for anyone to find him?

Nowhere.

On one hand he could count the number of people who had ever come for him. Savage. Talzin. Rook, Saxon, and through them Almec.

Even now, after he’d gone out of his way to send them a shadowy warning of the dangers to come, they were absent in the face of Sidious’ wrath.

No matter.

He didn’t need defending, certainly not from those as hypocritical and weak as the jedi.

Well.

Some were strong. Young Ezra was a fierce pupil, with a powerful connection to the Force. Lady Tano, while not longer (and not yet) a jedi had still bested him more than once with training from their temple. Skywalker could have bested him as a jedi. There were a handful of dueling masters that even now he itched to pit himself against.

And of course, Kenobi.

He never had managed to beat him.

Not on Naboo. Not during the Clone Wars. Not on Tatooine. A phantom burn hissed through Maul’s chest. Jedi spoke of the dangers of the Darkside, while conveniently glossing over how the light could burn.

The doors swished open in front of him and Maul tucked his thoughts away, behind the swirling darkness and a spiked wall of spite.

He came upon his master at a desk. His master, he repeated it in his mind over and over. The word. A curse and hiss and wound that had never healed.

Would it ever?

“You summoned me?” he asked, his voice low and rough. He’d taken a hit to the throat in training today, and broken the other students wrist for their trouble. They were starting to fear Maul enough that they didn’t want to hurt him for fear of retaliation. Other’s had learned that if they held back he would hurt them worse.

“You’ve been hiding something from me, Maul.”

Ice slithered down his spine. Maul stood straighter, his yellow eyes wide.

“I haven’t-”

A shock of lightning screamed through his nerves and drove him to his knees.

Maul didn’t make a sound. He went limp, slumped over his knees while his mind whited and his vision blurred. His hearts heat harder and harder until they felt like they were going to burst from his chest.

It stopped as soon as it started.

He sucked in frantic breathes.

Sidious ripped into his mind.

Maul howled inwardly, though outwardly he didn’t make a sound. He kept breathing, faster and faster as Sidious clawed into his brain. Sharp, electric tendrils of force raked through his through. Through the darkness and the spite. Through the ashes and the fire.

“Did you think you could really hide anything from me?” Sidious laughed, cold and cruel. He rifled through Maul’s thoughts. He started to fracture in the face of. The shallow sea of darkness was clawed at.

Distantly, Maul realized that Sidious was searching. Tearing through the confines of his thoughts, his wants, his very being. A lesser being (a being less used to pain. A being less cracked. A being less ragged at the edges.) would have cried. No tears fell from his eyes, even as they stared blankly at the ceiling.

A lesser being (A being less expecting to be violated so totally and relentlessly by the man who raised him) would have clawed at his masters hand when it closed around his throat.

Maul knew better.

Sidious kept dragging through the shallow thoughts on the surface. Each pass screamed with pain and betrayal. Maul smelled ozone. He tasted blood.

Sidious dug deeper. Looking, searching, he was going to find-

Maul broke.

He choked and the shadows spat out the only thing that could protect him.

All at once the pain stopped.

At some point Maul had fallen on his back. The high ceiling looked down on him dispassionately.

“Ah, little apprentice,” Sidious smiled down at him, a sick, cold thing on his face. “You’ve gone and gotten attached to Trezza’s little slave.”

Kilindi. He had given Sidious Kilindi. How could he do that to her-

“Did you think I would allow it? Your only focus can be your training. All that matters is the Grand Plan, and your place in it. You live only to do my bidding. You breath only to kill my enemies. Do you understand?”

Maul croaked weakly at him.

“Of course you do. You’ve always done what I asked. You only think of pleasing me. Isn’t that right?”

The hand that touched his forehead was light. Maul knew better, but he still flinched away from it. Sidious slapped him hard.

“Answer me!”

“Ye-es,” he forced out.

“Good. You can have no distractions. When you return to the school, you will sever your ties to the slave. And kill her. And her little human pet.”

Sidious stepped away from him. Maul’s head rolled when the droid came up beside him.

“I was going to teach you new darkside techniques today, but I felt your disquieted thoughts. I am done with you. You have wasted my time, and that slave girl will pay with her life, and you with it as well.”

The droid dragged him to his feet with unfeeling metal hands. Sidious didn’t look back to watch it drag Maul from the room.

The droid took him all the way back to the small shuttle that had only just brought him from the academy. Or not. Dawn had already arrived. How long had Sidious riffled through his mind before he broke?

He gave him Kilindi. He betrayed her. Again.

The first time he had killed her in Trezza’s office, after killing the headmaster with his own knife. He’d been covered in blood and shadow. She was the last survivor of the Orsis massacre.

Maul looked at Kilindi. She was Staring at him blankly, but she radiated fear like a child in the presence of an enormous monster. He'd never wanted her to fear him. It didn't matter now. He never paused to wonder how his life might have been different if he had not revealed his Force powers to Meltch Krakko. He never paused at all. His only purpose was to serve his master.

Kilindi didn't run. She did try to smile. She said, "I guess you're not interested in the surprise that Daleen and I had for you."

"Not anymore," Maul said. He made it quick. It was only mercy he could offer this girl.

He never hesitated. He never looked back.

Maul stumbled into Kilindi’s room in the dark. Daleen nearly stabbed him in the throat for his troubles. Maul caught her knife and twisted her arm behind her back casually. He could fight children. He could fight full grown adults. He could not fight his master, and he could not let him learn his secrets. The ones that were bigger than girls.

“You need to leave,” he said quietly. His teeth were red with his own blood.

“Maul?” Kilindi was halfway to the blaster she kept under her desk. Her dark eyes were fixed on him. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like.

Less like the monster that had killed her before. For better or worse.

“You need. To. Leave.”

“Why?” Daleen carefully extracted herself from his grasp. His face must have been alarming for her to try to touch his cheek. He caught her wrist.

“My master. He,” Maul swallowed. “Has ordered your death.”

Kilindi paled into a mint green. “He can’t. Trezza-”

“Trezza couldn’t stop him if he tried,” Maul shook his head. “He’s not what he seems, my master. He’s more powerful than you could imagine. Trezza can’t stop him. I can’t stop him. You need to run.”

“What about you?” Kilindi demanded. She was always too smart.

“He will hunt me down no matter how far I go.” All of Maul’s plans were out the window now. “But you he knows less. If you go now, quickly, you might escape with your lives.”

“We can’t leave you,” Daleen argued, her jaw set fiercely.

Maul turned on her, his eyes flashing. “You will leave. Now.” His voice bounced off the walls and around her skull. Daleen swayed.

“We will…”

“I am not letting you get yourself killed!” Kilindi argued, storming up to him. Maul didn’t not waver.

“I will not die,” he said firmly, the very first embers of an idea stirring into a spark. “I am too stubborn.”

He ignored Kilindi’s crushed expression.

“Go,” he said again. He side stepped the door. He knew that Kilindi had the codes for the hanger, and the ships inside. After she’d been stranded on her home planet, and hunted down by the guards for killing her master, she had become almost as paranoid as he was when it came to escape plans.

“Go.”

Kilindi took Daleen’s hand. She threw her arms around Maul. He soaked in her warmth for just a moment, a selfish luxury he allowed himself. He was about to face a horrible fate for her. He had least deserved a hug.

“We will find you again,” Kilindi swore.

Maul nodded to her. The pair disappeared down the hall, on the way to the hangers.

Maul made his way to the small craft landing platform and waited for dawn.

His master found him before it even broke.

#Darth Maul #Maul #time travel #Kilindi Matako #Daleen (Star Wars)#darth sidious #tw; violence mention #tw; violence

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lo-55 · 4 years

Text

Tilt The Hourglass Ch. 2

First Contact

“There’s a message coming in.”

Jango looked over at Myles, who held a holo projector in hand. The ship floated through space near Concord Dawn. He had been meaning to go back and visit his home world, but he’d also been looking at new clients. They weren’t hard pressed for money just yet, but they’d had to do major ship repairs after the last job had gone south, and he needed to pay for that amongst all the other supplies.

He’d been inspecting a few different offers, weighing risk and cost and reward together.

“Who is it?” he asked, tilting his helmet towards his companion. Myles was his second in command, Jango could tell he was acting strangely.

“I have no idea,” Myles said frankly. “The message was sent in Mando’a, and it’s on one of the Cabur channels.”

Jango sat up straight.

The cabur channels were only used by mandalorians, and only ones with the most dire of warnings. They had been used during the great wars in history, but slowly fell out of practice as tech advanced. At this point most mandalorians didn’t even know that they existed, nevermind the rest of the galaxy.

Jango set aside his datapads and made room for the projector in Myles’ hand.

Myles set it on the table and started to play the message.

No face popped up. Instead there was a stylized pattern of jagged lines, and a crown of thorns that circled them. The pattern wasn’t familiar to Jango, nor were the thorns, but he made a mental note to double check that there were no clans with the sygnette.

A warbled voice came through in harsh mando’a.

“Aran gar adate teh Galidraan. Val haaranovor aruetiise. Te Kyr'tsad. Ori’haat, Mand’alor.*”

Jango’s sucked in sharply.

Myles watched him while Jango quickly grabbed one of the datapads that he’d been looking at earlier. This one wasn’t a request, but a report for another one. Galidraan was in the opening stages of a potential civil war. Thus far no one had come to him for assistance on either side.

He made a note to find everything he could on the Governor.

“What do you think, Mand’alor?” Myles asked, coming up to his shoulder. Jango shook his head.

“I’m not sure yet. I don’t know a lot about Galidraan. And I don’t recognize the sigil. Do you?”

“No,” Myles frowned. “But I can make inquiries.”

“Did they give a name?” Jango circled the holo. The message started to play again. Whoever had sent it had used a voice modifier, and the mando’a was accented like the mouth speaking it wasn’t used to shaping the words. Yet the structure was right. The channel was private.

Jango wished, not for the first time, that his buir was still here. Jaster would have known all the signettes and all the clans that had ever been. He would be able to place the accent. Perhaps they were a foundling, and that was where it came from.

“Not a real one.”

Jango looked to him in inquiry.

“They called themselves ‘Bridger Tano’.”

Jango looked back at the holo. It was conceivable a name. Just a very odd one. “Isn’t ‘Tano’ a togruta name?”

Myles just shrugged.

The holo started repeating itself again, until Jango finally turned it off. He was going to have to look into this, all of it. Who had sent the message? Was it accurate?

Was Vizla on Galidraan?

Jango turned back to his work. He needed to get organized. Before he could sink too much into the new mystery they still needed credits.

He made a list in his head.

Find a new job.

Feed and clothe his people.

Look into Galidraan and see about hunting Vizla down like a dog and taking his head.

Perfect plan.

He picked up a holo for a commission from Savareen.

~ ~ ~

“So who’s Bridger Tano?” Kilindi asked from where she was sat beside Maul. Their table was small, and cramped into a storage room. Wires poured from a hole in the wall like entrails that hooked into the fist sized comm unit that Daleen had found somewhere. It was her idea to replace the initially recorded ‘Hood Maul’ as Kilindi called it with a stylized rendition of his face tattoos and horns. It was a little too distinct for his taste, but even his master might not recognize it. It had the same jagged lines that marked his face, but simplified, and circled with his short horns.

“There is not Bridger Tano,” he said, rolling his yellow eyes at her.

“I know that,” Kilindi insisted, “But you came up with the name pretty fast. Have you used it before?”

Maul considered her. Once, she had taken him swimming with her in the sea near the academy. The day was one of his few pleasant memories, even though it was also haunted by his master’s attempt to ‘train him’ on Mygeeto. Maul had never liked the water after, but the sea of Orsis was tolerable with Kilindi. She was kind to him, and respectful as well. She understood there was more darkness inside him than even his outer appearance could betray.

"So now you know about me. What about you? Where are you from?"

Maul looked down and watched the water ripple at his fingertips. From this angle the marks on his chest almost looked heart shaped. "I can't say."

Kilindi tilted her head curiously. Water dripped down her cheeks. "Because you can't say, or because you won't?"

"Both," Maul said, then shook his head. "We can't talk about... me." It was against the rules and if he broke the rules the punishment would be severe. Kilindi couldn’t know about him or his master. Just who he was supposed to be. A normal zabrak who was going to guard a blind business man. Not a sith-in-training. Not a force sensitive assassin. Not Maul.

Kilindi shrugged, the movement making her head tresses jiggle. "Nevermind. I won't ever ask personal questions again.”

She hadn’t, either. She asked his opinion. She asked his thoughts and preferences and interests. She never asked about his past. She was good like that. Maul thought she might have passed word of his secrecy to Daleen, for she didn’t ask either.

“No,” he said finally. “But ‘Bridger’ was my… not my brother. But I wanted him to be.” He had offered his apprentice a brotherhood, and forced his brother into apprenticeship. Maul had made so many mistakes with people he wanted close to him, so many times. He had only known apprentices and masters, he didn’t know how to be anything else. Hindsight was twenty twenty, and Maul’s mind felt clearer here. Even though the Force was loud with the voices of jedi not yet dead and force sensitive children who hadn’t been hunted down, even though it was disgustingly bright with the light side, he felt like he was lighter. And it wasn’t because his legs were no longer powerful metal, or that he was two feet shorter.

He would have to work on how he interacted with people.

“And Tano?” Daleen asked, looking somewhere between curious and worried for him.

“A powerful fighter I used to know. She was clever, and relentless.” Maul had respected the Lady Tano, for all he had loathed her lineage. She should have listened to him on Mandalore, and perhaps she would not have perished on Malachor.

She wouldn’t even be born yet, he realized with a start. She was barely grown when they first clashed, and he was well into his thirties.

“...You don’t talk a lot about your life outside Orsis,” Kilindi pressed gently. Maul could feel her worry. Did she think it was his concussion talking?

“I’m not allowed to,” he confessed, “My Master would be furious if he knew.”

The words felt like acid on his tongue. ‘My Master’. Something he had once taken such pride in. He was the apprentice to the most powerful creature in the galaxy. He had given him everything, and he had been discarded like garbage.

“Then why are you?”

Maul didn’t know how to answer that. “Isn’t that- isn’t that what friends are supposed to do?”

Kilindi had once broken Trezza’s rules to help Maul with a task. Daleen was breaking several rules to help him now, with no real questions asked.

Both girls stared at him, before a grin bloomed across Kilindi’s face. Daleen covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were dancing even if he couldn't see her mouth.

Maul, his skin feeling warmer, looked towards the door. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You don’t need to. Your eyebrows say everything.”

“I don’t even have those!”

Daleen struggled not to laugh at them. Finally, she gave up and started giggling helplessly. Maul shoved her, and she kicked his knee in return.

It felt good. Sitting in the dark with his friends, laughing and breaking rules. Most of the rest of the academy was sleeping. There were few who would catch them, and Kilindi knew Trezza’s habits enough they didn’t worry about him.

His friends.

Maul looked at the two girls.

He would not allow Sidious to take them from him again. He refused.

Maul looked back at the holo projector. There was another message he was very tempted to send, but he didn’t know how well it would be received. And, also, he hated the potential recipients.

The hatred he harbored for his master overshadowed every other grudge he had ever had.

Yet, now it warred with new feelings that Maul was struggling to process.

“I have one more to send,” he said at last, and gave Daleen the code for the next message.

If she recognized the numbers she didn’t show any sign. It wasn’t as secret as the one he used for the mandalorians, but it was still more than a little outdated. Another relic he’d discovered on Malachor, on the body of one of the dead. It was probably about two thousand years old, but it should still work.

Daleen set up the holo and looked to him for confirmation.

Maul cleared his throat and nodded to her. She hit the button and he spoke briefly.

“You have surrounded yourself in darkness, and now the noose begins to tighten. Shadows encroach. Search underneath the underneath.”

Kilindi waited until Daleen checked the transmission and sent it out before she looked at Maul.

“What in the galaxy was that? Don’t tell me that Maul is dramatic!”

Daleen shot Kilindi a look. “His first day here he picked a fight with the biggest person and almost bit his nose off. Of course he’s dramatic.”

“I am not!” Maul argued.

“You are so! You’re so dramatic your eyes glow in the dark.”

Maul huffed at Kilindi and helped Daleen pack all the wires back into their proper place. Orsis was equipped with encrypted lines already, and it hadn’t taken Daleen much work to monkey off of them and hide the origin of their messages. It was best Maul could do without giving himself away, but still possibly getting what he wanted.

Namely, irritating his master.

He had no doubt that Sidious would take his anger out on Maul when he saw him next, but he had endured pain beyond measure. He had died. He would survive Sidious as well.

The trio peered out into the dark hallway before they scampered out of the room and raced for the barracks. Kilindi left them at the door to go to her own room, her eyes sparkling.

“See you tomorrow,” she whispered, patting each of them on the shoulder before she ran off.

Daleen bunked across the hall from Maul, and she too left him a moment later.

Maul slipped silently into his own room. He was steadily getting used to his new, smaller body. It was easier to go unnoticed when he was this small, even if he wasn’t as strong as he would one day become.

In the next few days he would start training again, even harder than before. He had to get as strong as he could as fast as he could. He was no longer training to impress his master. He was training to kill him. To destroy his life’s work and rip him from his pedestal. He would throw him into the dirt and grind him under his heel. He would take everything his once-master had ever had and burn it to the ground.

And then he would get up, climb out of the dust, and join Kilindi and Daleen. And perhaps Eldra Kaith. For a jedi, she had been a good sort.

She had fought with honor. She was cunning, fast, and strong. She was worthy of their battle. Her death left him feeling empty and hollow.

It was not the grief that came with Kilindi and Daleen, but a different sort of sorrow.

Maul climbed up onto his bunk. He took the top, so he could always have the high ground, and so he never had to worry about anyone or anything falling down on him from above. He didn’t trust his classmates. With good reason. They were future bounty hunters and assassins, the dregs of the underworld that Maul had spent most of his life surrounded by. He trusted few. In the future he would trust their interests. Money, power, and bits of shine and spice. Now they were teenagers and none of them were above trying to discreetly take his mattress out to the sea and set him to float.

Maul was typically above the childish pranks, since his little ‘test’ when he’d begun training here and nearly killed the massive being he’d taken on, but there was a pair of Rodian’s who liked to cause him trouble.

Trezza liked them to handle things themselves, and as long as they were sneaky enough he would let them get away with it.

Maul had once shattered a boys hand for calling Kilindi his slave, and Trezza had never brought the incident up again.

The mattress was firm underneath him when he rolled on his side to face the door. If he stretched out his senses he could feel Daleen across the hall. She was an easy person to be around. She felt like summer wind against his skin, warm and light but capable of becoming something so much more. There was storm buried deep in her heart that he had been too young and too focused on himself to notice last time.

Further, near the corridor that would lead to the building where the teachers slept, Kilindi was still settling. If Daleen was a summer wind Kilindi was a summer sea. She was warm, powerful and strong, capable of anything. She could be great. She would be great if Maul had anything to say about it.

He did.

This time he did.

Maul closed his yellow eyes and pulled his blanket up over his shoulders. Tomorrow he could finally start training again. Tomorrow he would begin his long mission to protect what was his.

~ ~ ~ ~

If he was being perfectly honest Maul didn’t particularly like the beach.

The water would always remind him of Mygeeto, no matter how many years had passed (or that he hadn’t even completed that training yet here.) and the sand clung to his skin and managed to get everywhere that he never wanted it. He may not have been prone to burning in the sunlight but it still felt sweltering on his bare chest. He was a creature made for darkness, not sunlight.

Kilindi wanted to come, though, and Daleen agreed with her.

Maul had never skipped class before. Not one single lesson, not in either life.

When Kilindi suggested it, Maul followed her without argument.

Dallen stretched out on a towel a few metes away from him. She’d pinned her dark hair high on her head and seemed to be intent on baking herself. She was frighteningly exposed, but the knife next to her right hand was a small comfort for him.

Kilindi was already in the water, her body cutting through the waved with the utmost ease. She was made for the ocean. He was made for the shadows. Daleen was made for talking the skin off a tooka.

She was so persuasive sometimes Maul would have thought she was using the Force if he didn’t know better.

That somehow seemed even more dangerous.

There were some beings that the Force didn’t work on. Toydarians and Hutts being prime among them. Daleen would be good for times when force, either kind, was ill advised. There were times when a person needed to be more subtle than Maul really was.

Oh he could sneak around. He could make himself into a shadow. He could infiltrate any prison he wanted, and frighten whatever underworld scum he wanted to. But those tactics got people talking.

Last time he’d learned the hard way that he was going to have to be more careful. In luring out Kenobi he’d also lured in his master.

Kenobi.

Maul looked away from the girls towards the sky, as blue as his rivals eyes. He still couldn’t understand why he had looked so sad when he’d held his dying body.

If Maul remembered right, Kenobi was a few years older than him. Had he even gotten that silly little braid of his yet? Or was still sheltered and safe inside the jedi temple? Qui Gon Jinn would be younger now too. Younger and stronger.

Maul itched to fight him again.

When he was stronger, when he wasn’t as slow with age and battleworn as he had been when they’d dueled on Naboo. After decades Maul himself understood what age did to a person, although he’d never had bad knees or hips. He’d just replaced them whenever they wore down. His shoulder and wrists were another matter.

If there was one thing he enjoyed about this entire endeavor it was that this young body lacked a few decades worth of residual pain. He’d always drawn energy from the Force and from his own feelings, but there was something different about having a body that wasn’t constantly on the edge of exhaustion, tormented after years of malnutrition, torture, battle, and so many near death expiriences he had long ago lost track. His tattoos had hid it, but he was more scar tissue than skin by the end of his life.

Maul kicked at the sand under his feet. He’d never known he would miss the feeling of it squishing between his toes.

He felt Daleen come closer to him, so he wasn’t surprised when her head popped into view. She was at least getting quieter on her feet.

“Whatcha thinkin of?” she asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Maul kept his face perfectly smooth. “Nunya.”

“Nunya?” Daleen repeated, her brows furrowed.

“Nunya business.”

She stared at him. He stared back.

“I… hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said with certainty.

She pouted. “I wish I did.”

Kilindi finally climbed out of the water and shook her head tresses out. The stripes glittered with water droplets.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked, swinging an arm around Daleen’s shoulders.

Daleen shot Maul a look before she said, “Nunya.”

Kilindi punched her in the side. “Shut it.”

Daleen shoved her harmlessly and stuck out her tongue.

“You’re both such children.”

“...I think you’re younger than the both of us.”

Maul narrowed his eyes at Kilindi. “You can’t prove that.”

Her grin turned mischievous and Maul nearly took a wary step back. He knew from experience that nothing good came from Kilindi looking like that.

He kept his ground.

“What are you thinking?”

“I was thinking we should have a contest,” she said innocently.

“What kind?” Daleen pulled out from under her arm so the three of them formed a triangle.

“Well. Next weekend Trezza is having the mid-term examinations, right?”

Maul had completely forgotten about those. Most students in Orsis would be cramming in the week to come, staying up late training or studying or both. The tests were grueling, and taken individually and in private. Each test was different, and pushed students to their limits. How well they did determined how high they scored, with a system that Maul had never totally understood. However, he and Kilindi had always placed at the top in each field. Survival, combat, espionage, and, for older students, there was the optional seduction.

Maul had skipped out on that one.

“Yeah,” Daleen finally said, frowning.

“Well, we should have a contest. Whoever does the best overall wins.”

“That’s so not fair!” Daleen argued. “You two will beat me.”

“Not if you do better,” Maul said dryly. Daleen scowled at him. “Besides, she said overall. What does the winner get?”

Kilindi considered that, tilting her head. “Mmmm. Bragging rights?”

Good enough for him. Reluctantly, Daleen agreed as well.

Together, the three of them made their way back to the academy, where Trezza was waiting with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Run,” he ordered, pointing to the track that wound its way around the facilities.

They took their punishment without complaint, a new tradition started.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Guard your people from Galidraan. They hide traitors. The Death Watch. I swear, Mand’alor.

A/N : I made up the Cabur channels for convinience. I’m not an expert I’m just having fun here, so uh. Yeah.

#Darth Maul #Daleen (Star Wars)#Kilindi Matako #Star Wars #star wars the prequel trilogy #Maul #Time Travel

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