Chapter Text
When he was young, Maul had asked his master why they never saw other creatures that looked like him.
It was a quiet day. He had been permitted to sit silently on the floor and meditate while his master listened to the symphony. The music was calming, and he’d felt brave enough to ask a question that was not, strictly speaking, necessary to his training.
He’d recently returned from Cato Neimoidia, sent there by his master on some mission whose details had been lost to him over the years of his madness. It had seemed like the most important thing in the galaxy when he was a child, but looking back, all that really stood out was the man.
You’re a long way from Dathomir, little one.
Maul had been at the corner of the street, waiting to trail his target, and the low voice had startled him. Every time he’d looked back on the incident, he’d never been able to remember the tall human’s face. The strange words and the lightsaber clipped to the pale robes had driven out all other details.
I’m not lost, Maul had replied, shaking with the desire to sink his fangs into the Jedi’s flesh – but not yet, not yet, his master had commanded. The crowds had pressed around them, forcing them away from each other, Maul left the planet the next day, and he hadn’t seen the Jedi again.
In his studies in the library, in his travels throughout the galaxy, Maul had seen several humans like his master. He’d seen droids and animals and people of all sizes and shapes and colors. But he had never seen any with the same vivid patterns covering their skin, and eyes that reflected light like his.
He’d never wondered before, where he came from, how he came to be under his master. Whatever the answers were surely paled in significance to what he was now achieving. But the Jedi - this was the first time someone had recognized his kind, and it was intriguing enough to ask.
His master leaned back in the chair, thoughtfully steepling his fingers. “The world I brought you from is very isolated,” he answered eventually. “Not many of your kind leave the planet. But your mother knew you were unique. She gave you to me so you could fulfill your role in shaping the galaxy.”
Pride had swelled in his chest at the response, driving out all other questions. He had been youthfully confident of his place at his master’s side, certain that his great destiny would be worth whatever was asked of him now. He hadn’t bothered about his past again, until his future was torn away from him.
***
He wasn’t sure the being leading him out of the tunnel was real.
He’d never seen another creature with markings like his before. He was following it blindly, drawn by black streaks on the face and eyes that reflected light. He was unsure where they were going, only that it was – away.
But his cave was familiar, if nothing else, and – something wasn’t right.
Colors, his mind supplied. The colors of the other face were wrong, not like his own. But what did he know, he had changed so much from – whatever he’d been before.
You’re a long way from -
He stopped in his tracks.
The being leading him stopped too, so maybe it was only a vision, no different from the imaginary companions he used to scratch on the walls of his room on Mustafar.
“The Mother sent me for you,” a gruff voice said soothingly, as if to a child, and it came from outside himself. He shivered, and the walls of the tunnel shivered too – where did outside himself begin, when he could feel every burrowing insect and took in all the rotting flesh -
“I’m taking you home.”
Home.
The Mother –
You’re a long way from –
“Dathomir.”
The name swirled up from somewhere in the past, escaping frantic, muttering lips.
The creature like him seemed pleased. “You remember Dathomir?”
You’re a long way – your mother gave you to me – I must ask for mercy, Master – mercy is a lie, I ask not for mercy -
Filthy nails dug into his skin, tracing the markings that spiraled down his bandaged arms. Rage was an old friend, but shame had always been the enemy. What was this place, that he felt he should remember it?
“…No.”
***
His brother was a strange creature.
It didn’t take long for Maul to realize that something was – wrong with Savage. He had proved himself devastating in combat, the force boiling with the rage in every strike, but his power felt…different. Too potent, too concentrated, like it had been planted there and didn’t quite fit.
And when they were quiet, alone, it disappeared altogether like it had never been there in the first place.
He had a brother. That title meant nothing to him, but to Savage, it apparently meant following Maul around like some sort of stray akk dog. Maul hadn’t asked him to come wandering around the galaxy, trying to keep the Jedi off their backs long enough to begin assembling the vision from the Mother’s table – he had just done it.
But there was no immediate need to dispute the decision. Savage was useful in a fight, and tolerable enough company. He rarely spoke. Mostly he just sat there, watching Maul with his calm, steady gaze like he never wanted to stop looking.
That, admittedly, annoyed the hell out of him.
Maul was ignoring him now, lost in the task of cleaning his blade. The metal of the hilt was pitted and worn, and grime had worked its way into every seam. It served him well enough, the red crystal still thrumming eagerly beneath his hands, but it still didn’t work quite right. Not like it had before Kenobi sheared it in half.
(He must have held on to his weapon when he fell, for Savage to find it in the cave. It had been there the entire time, years and years and years, and he had forgotten it.)
“Here.”
Savage had broken his silence to hand over a small jar of some greasy dark liquid. “Oil from the liver of a rancor. For cleaning weapons. I brought it from Dathomir.”
Maul leaned back, the metal of the ship’s hull cool against his skin. “Your home?” He wasn’t bothered to know about the planet, exactly, but that Savage was here and not on his home world - it never hurt to test an ally’s motivations.
Savage blinked patiently; the gloom in the cockpit made his amber eyes glow slightly. “And yours.”
Maul shifted, indifferent. “I’ve never lived there.”
“It is the most beautiful world in the galaxy.” Savage had apparently taken the response as a question. “The sky is red. Sometimes as red as you, other times as pale as the mountain stones. At night, we would hunt rancor in the forests and roast them on the bonfires until morning. The Brothers live in the mountains and paint the caves. The Sisters live in the valley bogs, and when the wind is right, it carries their songs.”
Part of Maul was intrigued as to who ‘we’ had been, but he was more surprised Savage had said that much at all; it was the most he’d ever heard his brother talk.
It had raised more questions than answered, but Maul had learned a long time ago that to need answers from another being was to give them power. He held his tongue.
“Hm.”
They were not in hyperspace; not yet, not without a destination. They were simply drifting from one world to the next. Maul had always liked it better that way, to be able to notice every star. He glanced up, idly wondering which one was Dathomir’s red sun, how far they had come. How long it would be before Savage returned there.
“…I’m not going anywhere,” Savage said eventually. He was as stoic as ever, but there was some deep emotion in the amber eyes that Maul couldn’t quite name. “There’s nothing left for me on Dathomir.”
He bristled, incensed at his brother’s naive assumption that he needed reassuring, like he was some child anxious of abandonment.
He should have dispelled the notion immediately. Laughed. Ordered him to leave. Anything. It would have been so easy.
But…Maul had never had a home to miss, but he imagined it was difficult, to feel like you could no longer go back. And he did understand what it was to lose an old life, everything you were certain of.
Even if Savage apparently thought Maul needed him, he was starting to realize, a bit uncomfortably, that Savage might need Maul even more.
He would have despised that weakness, once.
But his brother was quiet, and useful, and here.
He did nothing.
***
Savage was making the hull of the ship creak, his dark mood spilling into the force and straining the metal.
Maul couldn’t exactly blame him; venom was still burning through his strong new body, the hatred that had kept him alive for years still seething at the memory of Kenobi. Pretending he had forgotten Maul, that the battle in the heart of the queen’s palace had been nothing to him.
But still, Maul wasn’t the one in immediate danger of destroying all that separated them from the vacuum of space.
“Control yourself.”
Savage said nothing, but he made a visible effort to rein himself in, his powerful hands slowly curling in front of him. The groaning of the ship ceased.
“You are strong,” Maul admitted. “But strength unchecked can be your downfall. Do not let the witch unbalance you.”
And there was little doubt that she was the one who’d so infuriated his brother. Kenobi had called her Ventress, and Maul’s revenge would have been completed by now if not for her interference.
“I will see her dead,” Savage swore beside him. He fell silent, and for a moment Maul thought he wouldn’t speak again, until he continued quietly, “I had a brother. Before you. I didn’t remember him until I saw her again.”
Didn’t remember? How –
“She came to the mountains and selected me as her mate. Or she would have, if she had followed our laws. But she only wanted me as a tool.” Savage’s voice was as level as ever, but there was a…hollowness, now. Like he was on autopilot. Maul doubted he would have even heard an interruption.
“The Sisters bound me to her will. Altered my mind with their magicks. She brought my brother before me and ordered me to kill him. I obeyed.”
(Once, when Maul was a child, his master had brought him to a distant planet and left him there with one simple directive: survive.
The planet had been populated only by wild animals, vicious canine creatures that stalked Maul during the night and attacked him whenever he tried to rest during the day, stealing whatever meat he’d hunted for himself.
After seven nights, Maul had singled out the leader of the pack. It had dull reddish-brown fur, and eyes that reflected light like himself. He’d wrestled the creature into submission, having no weapons but his bare hands. It took until the morning, but finally, as the sun peered over the horizon, he had won. The animals submitted to him, letting him tear off his portion of their kills first, even permitting him to pet their fur and sleep curled up next to the leader’s warmth.
Seven days later, his master had returned.
You have tamed these creatures? he’d asked, as though he’d expected no less.
Yes. Maul had been proud of the feat; he’d survived, even made allies.
Good, his master said. Now kill them.)
“She sold me to Dooku,” Savage continued. “And when they no longer wanted me, they betrayed me.” He leaned back, crossing his arms. “Feral was weak, but he was mine. I loved him.”
Maul knew why his own master commanded him to kill. There was no pity or remorse in the dark side, and any allies he may have made would have, eventually, only hindered him in his destiny. But for Savage to be cast aside for no fault of his own, to be forced to kill what belonged to him for no purpose – it was wrong.
“We will make them pay,” he promised, suddenly as furious as his brother had been moments ago, “for what was stolen from you.”
The dim light of the stars overhead reflected off his brother’s amber eyes, turning them silver. “And from you.”
They were silent after that. Savage’s presence in the force returned to its calm steadiness, but now there was something more…frayed than before.
The dark side never left Maul, its energy singing through him and keeping him alive, but he had learned to control his anger. The time for vengeance would come soon enough. He was content to sit, for now, watching the stars.
And from you, Savage had said. In the moment, Maul had only thought of Kenobi, robbing him of his destiny, but now he had an unsettling feeling that that was not quite what his brother had meant.
Kenobi – he had taken everything from Maul. I’m not sure I’ve made your acquaintance, he’d had the nerve to say. Maul had quickly shattered that infuriating act; he remembered Kenobi’s scream of anguish when Qui-Gon Jinn had fallen. His enemy’s pathetic performance today proved that for all his so-called discipline, he still had not recovered from that loss.
In the freezing depths of space, with his silent brother beside him, it wasn’t nearly as satisfying a discovery as Maul had imagined it to be.
***
Maul noticed things about Savage, though he tried not to.
His brother held his weapon with his left hand, like Maul did.
His eyes glowed in darkness, he bared his fangs in amusement or anger. He rubbed his horns against the side of the ship just for the sensation. He saved the bones from the meat he hunted to crack between his teeth. Maul had done that himself when he was young, until his master forbade it.
Watching his brother, he felt like a child again, tracing his own face in the ash of Mustafar and asking his master why there were no creatures that looked like him. It was nauseating, recognizing himself in another, but the weakness was not…entirely unpleasant. Like some poison was being expelled from his body.
Maul remembered nothing before his master. But something was stirring in him, long-dormant dreams of a heartbeat by his ear, the warm pressure of another body against his. His mother?
He had almost asked about her, several times. Was she Savage’s mother as well? Then why had she given only one of them to his master, and not the other?
He didn’t ask.
But Savage never expected him to have anything to say. He was a steady presence to watch his back and touch that wasn’t intended to teach a lesson.
(Reflective eyes like his, and warmth to sleep by, and freedom to take his share of the kill first -)
He sank his nails into his palms, drawing blood. His brother’s softness was more Maul’s fault than Savage’s, and something had to be done about it if they were both to be strong enough to survive a galaxy at war. Maul’s curiosity had always been his weakness; his master had punished him for it enough, and now, once again, he had almost let it out of his control.
His brother did not know the ways of the true Sith, being trained by the pretender Dooku. But there was no equality in the pursuit of power, and he should never have allowed Savage to believe that. There was only the master, and the apprentice.
***
Pre Vizsla was a fool.
Maul realized it the second he had started parading around, decrying the Mandalorian duchess, performing for his men.
Maul’s own master had never raised his voice. His commands had always been quiet: be quicker next time.
Leave no one alive.
Survive.
And Maul had obeyed.
But Vizsla blustered and boasted and yelled, as self-righteous as a Jedi with none of the control. He was a fool, but a useful one for now, so Maul tolerated him.
He could feel Savage’s contempt for the Mandalorian rebel as well, a shadow of his own. Always standing silently off to the side whenever the Death Watch gathered did not exactly endear them to their new allies, but neither of them needed to be liked, as long as they were heeded.
And they had plenty enough to do on their own anyway; just because they were at war didn’t mean his apprentice was free from training.
Savage was powerful and a quick thinker, but he still tended to put too much of his energy into single strikes. He was reactive, instead of fixing the battlefield in his favor.
Maul sighed as his apprentice finished the sequence. “You are correct in form, but you are not thinking correctly yet.” He ignited his own blade, the red crystal humming into life.
Savage faced him patiently, waiting for the next instruction, and he was suddenly, uncomfortably, conscious of the fact that even with a weapon in his hand, his apprentice trusted Maul not to hurt him.
Such trust was weakness, his mind supplied. Maul had respected his own master, but the rules had been clear: to let his guard down, even for a moment, was to die.
It had made him strong, but he knew Savage had had a very different upbringing. His master punished Maul when he failed, but Dooku and Ventress, he’d gathered, had punished Savage for next to nothing. Pain was a useful tool, but the edge quickly blunted if it was used too carelessly.
His apprentice performed admirably enough, and he was no child. He did not need to learn the ways of anger and hate, merely how to channel them, and Maul did not consider himself an unreasonable teacher. There was no need to punish him.
“…Here,” he said. “Let me show you.”
***
He could hear Saxon and Kast celebrating with the rest of Death Watch for hours after his victory. They’d taken over the throne room, and those not currently searching for Bo-Katan were cheering the fact that they were finally standing in the palace of Sundari – decorating it with their war trophies, defacing all traces of the deposed duchess.
Such revelry was irksome, but harmless. Maul had simply removed himself from it, relocating to the former duchess’ rooms with the order that he was not to be disturbed unless the rebels were caught. The suite was elegant, but simple compared to the rest of the palace, which was a welcome sight. He’d never understood people that felt the need to surround themselves with luxury. And more importantly, it was secluded.
He’d allowed Savage to join him, because his presence in the force was quiet, and his apprentice’s low voice was not a bother. He was leaning in the doorframe now, examining the strange black sword Maul had claimed as his prize.
“This is a curious weapon. It reminds me of the bows the Sisters use. Vizsla was not worthy of it.”
Maul bared his fangs in amusement. “No. But, it was a good fight.”
Not a glorious one, certainly. There had never been any question in either of their minds that Maul would be victorious. But it was the most enjoyment he’d had in some time.
Vizsla had shattered glass from the floor, throwing it up with his blade and lacerating Maul’s skin. It was no matter; his skin was tougher than any human opponent Vizsla may have faced, and he’d certainly been through much worse. But it was frustrating, removing all of the shards, having to tug out particularly stubborn ones with his teeth until fresh, bright red stained his black markings.
Savage watched him as steadfastly as ever (he’d learned some time ago not to offer help), but there was a growing sadness in his amber eyes that was becoming a bit irritating.
“If you’d rather be somewhere else, you are free to go where you please.” It came out more defensively than he intended, and he growled to himself as he ripped out a deeply embedded shard with more force than necessary.
“…Do you know what your marks mean?” It was a quiet question, and not at all one that Maul had been expecting.
His immediate thought was they mean something? He’d wondered about them, certainly, in his childhood. There had been many times he’d sat in his room with broken ribs or a shattered wrist, and nothing to do but trace the elaborate whorls covering his skin. But when no answers were forthcoming, he’d written them off as just one more thing that set him apart. The guardedness was replaced by that awful shame that his apprentice stirred in him.
“…No. I do not care to know.” It sounded like an excuse even to Maul’s own ears.
“You were stolen from Dathomir,” Savage said quietly. “That is not your fault.” He reached, not for his own markings, but for Maul’s. The large hands gently brushed his face. “The head, to listen –“
He moved to the forearms – “the hands, to act. And –“ He laid his warm palm on Maul’s patterned chest – “the hearts, to protect. Every Brother bears these marks, so we will always know each other.” He glanced down at the careless blood stains. “Treat them with respect.”
Despite the slight admonition, Savage had disarmed the shame with the instinctive ‘we.’ It was foolish, Maul thought, for his apprentice to consider him one of the Brothers when he had never lived on Dathomir, never known their ways. But a smaller, traitorous part of him was awed at the revelation that he had always carried something that, quite literally, marked him as one of them – something that had nothing to do with his master.
“…Watch yourself, apprentice.” It was a half-hearted warning at best, and Savage seemed to know it. But he still, to Maul’s slight relief, backed off.
He should have sent his apprentice away. Even taught him a lesson about insubordination. But…he did not want Savage to leave. That was the simple truth of it, and it wasn’t nearly as galling an admittance as it might once have been.
Savage crossed his arms with a slight whir of cybernetic gears. “Your master was cruel.” It was a statement, not a question.
He was. That had never been a point of contention. But that was the way of the Sith. Maul’s earliest memories were learning how to survive, and how to kill not much longer after that. It had all been in service of the plan, and when Kenobi had robbed Maul of his place in it, the plan had moved on without him.
He shrugged, not quite willing to look at the other. “He made me strong.”
“No.” There was his apprentice’s powerful rage. “You are strong. He only made you believe that you belonged to him.”
“I belong to no one.” He hissed out a breath, discomfort forgotten in the familiar throes of anger. His fingers twitched, ready to summon his blade, but there was no challenge in Savage’s amber eyes.
“No, you don’t,” his apprentice agreed calmly.
For a moment, they hung balanced on a knife’s edge. Maul would never have dared speak such things to his own master. But he was starting to realize that, though Savage obeyed him and followed him, he did not entirely see Maul as his master. The knowledge should have infuriated him, but there was only confusion – what did Savage want from him, otherwise?
His apprentice was not quiet – not anymore, not much. But he was still useful; taking Mandalore, Maul admitted, would have been much more difficult without him. And he was still here, despite everything, and showed no signs of wanting to leave.
His apprentice was odd, and perhaps it was time Maul simply accepted that.
“…Go on, apprentice,” he said eventually. “Make sure that Saxon does not destroy the palace before morning. After all,” and he could not help the slight satisfied purr that entered his voice, “we want everything to be spotless when our guest arrives.”
Savage nodded once, all stoic business again, but as he turned to leave, there was a quick flash of – something. Maul did not quite dare to call it fondness. “Yes, brother.”