Chapter Text
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 eachother 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.
~ ~