#interspersed with bursts of compulsion. … i am maybe writing something about him. MAYBE. if i can figure out where i want his story to go.

[loveoaths]

i can’t stop describing maul as innately predatory, radiating silky danger and watchful teeth even when he appears at ease. the man has lived his entire life as a tiger in a cage; he does not do soft, because soft gets you killed, and he refuses to die.

i love writing him feline, elegant and animal bound together. there is something about him that innately triggers the primal in all who encounter him: the hair on your body pricks up, every sensory nerve kicking to life as that ancient evolutionary awareness that something is watching you, and it is hungry settles too-tight on your skin. his presence is paranoia, it’s that inner prickle when you whip around because you can feel someone watching you, but no one’s there. uncanny. unnerving. unwanted.

even when he’s caught and locked in a cell and you are separated by bars and force-blocking cuffs and solid walls, watching him watch you back feels like seeing a caged tiger for the first time, comes with the rapid onset feeling of, “oh.” this person, this thing is so much bigger, so much more dangerous, so much more unknowable than you ever anticipated, and for a split second you do not believe those cage bars will contain him. but then you think, no, metal is metal and you’re safe here. you’re safe. you are. and maul looks at you, contained, padding his cell carefully, knowing exactly when to turn without looking, golden eyes aglow and fixed on yours, and you can almost hear, in the menacing rumble unfurling inside his chest, an ancient word, one your animal ancestors knew but you’ve since evolved too far past to recognize, that feels a lot like “for now.”