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Ezra tried out the new hilt for his light saber, twisting the components he’d put together like he would in a real fight. He hadn’t seen too many of those still, but a lot more than he had even a year ago. He’d made the hilt of his saber to fit his hand, and to accommodate his flexible combat style, part blaster part saber. Something he’d heard of only in old stories. Most things to do with light sabers came only from old stories. Though the Empire didn’t like having such stories spread, Ezra had always felt a kinship with the Jedi knights of the legends. A desire to spread his proverbial wings and fight like the heroes of the forbidden tales.
Of course, the Jedi were gone now. The only people Ezra had seen use light sabers now, or at all given his young age, were the Inquisitors. And Maul, of course. Maul wasn’t an inquisitor, but he certainly wasn’t a Jedi, and he’d get rather offended if Ezra suggested such.
Maul didn’t like it even when Ezra said Maul had saved him from the Inquisitors on Lothal. Even though as far as Ezra could tell that had been what happened, Maul would absolutely bristle at the word ‘saved’. Even though Maul had been such a smooth talker when Ezra had first met him, the more Ezra got to know him, the closer they seemed to get, the more conflict he could feel in the older man. It was odd, like he wanted Ezra to be close, to be a proper apprentice as he had put it, but at times also wanted to push him away.
Ezra unsheathed the saber, going through his forms under Maul’s watchful eye.
“New grip, same saber,” Maul said, not commenting on Ezra’s form. Ezra didn’t know if that meant it had been alright or just unremarkable. “Your kyber is still blue.”
So it was. In the legends of the Jedi, blue was a common enough color for a light saber, a natural color for a kyber crystal. Red wasn’t a natural color for a kyber crystal, according to Maul, although other than Ezra’s own, the only sabers Ezra had seen were red. Maul’s and the Inquisitors’. They had bled them, the crystals. Some dark side technique. Something to do with the Sith.
Maul had told Ezra all about the Sith. He had also told him how he might go about bleeding his own kyber to make his saber red like their own. Ezra… Hadn’t been sold on the idea, but he’d tried it out. When he had, he’d been able to feel the kyber crying out, clearly in pain in some intangible way. He stopped after that. The bit of red he’d bled from the crystal still stained it, but it hadn’t made it all the way to the blade. Just a small touch, just a tinge of red on the crystal reminding him.
He wouldn’t tell Maul, but he preferred having a saber the same color as the Jedi of legends. It made him feel more heroic in a way, even if he wasn’t generally a heroic person. A delinquent kid from a backwater planet who had escaped the Inquisitors and caught the attention of the leader of an intergalactic crime syndicate. An apprentice to a former Sith Lord.
“You said the Sith bleed their crystals, right? But… We’re not Sith.”
A complicated expression crossed Maul’s face, as it often did when the Sith were mentioned. When he was reminded of his past with them. Anger, hatred, pain. These were his Master’s constant companions. These were what he told Ezra to hold on to.
Ezra held great respect for his Master, of course, former Sith Lord, leader of Crimson Dawn, but… Maul had never made a compelling case for the ideals of the Sith. In fact, when he spoke of the Sith, he never had anything good to say. Ezra wasn’t exactly an expert, but he felt the view held by Crimson Dawn’s second in command summed it up nicely.
”Whatever they did, the Sith messed him up good.” She had said. ”But he teaches you the only way he knows. It’s all any of us can do.”
Ezra may have been a delinquent kid on the street, but he’d grown up before that with loving parents, until they’d gone missing, taken by the Empire. Maybe that was an advantage, maybe it was a weakness. Maybe it was a little of both.
“No, we’re not.” Maul agreed after a long moment. Ezra had spent a long time with Maul by this point, but there were still times he couldn’t read him. Maul tended to be closely guarded, for someone who was so free at times with his emotions. Ezra thought, it must have been terribly difficult to be a Sith, with all the contradictions one had to internalize. Ezra hadn’t been put into that position so far, after all, he would just point out that he was not a Sith.
He wasn’t a Jedi either, but he wasn’t sure Maul had any grasp on their actual teachings. What he did say of them, however, was always said with disdain. The Jedi, the Sith, he hated all of them. Maybe he hated the whole galaxy. But he didn’t hate Ezra.
Ezra supposed he too was his Master’s constant companion. Maul had said once that a Sith Master had to make his Apprentice hate him, or said Apprentice would never be trained right, could never be called a true Dark Lord of the Sith. A Sith Lord could not trust anyone, not for a moment, not for a second. Ezra had only responded that he was glad they weren’t Sith. Maul had been silent on the subject after that.
But, Ezra figured, that was what Qi’ra had meant. Maul spoke of such things because they were all he knew. What other way had he ever known of training an apprentice, of raising a child, of interacting with others in this world.
Maybe it was good then, that he had Ezra for his companion. Someone there to remind him of what he wasn’t.
“We will be travelling, just you and I, to an old Sith Temple our organization has located.”
“Just the two of us?”
“Yes. As Master and Apprentice.”
“To a Sith Temple?”
“We may follow a new way, my young Apprentice, but that doesn’t mean we should be ignorant of what has come before. And… Anything we can find there first is something the Inquisitors cannot get their hands on.”
If Ezra hadn’t had his own run-in with the Inquisitors, he might have found Maul’s stories a bit more far-fetched. Stories of the Sith and how they were the ones behind the Empire’s takeover. Their leader none other than the Emperor himself, their underlings, the Inquisitors. Maul had told him, if they had managed to capture him, they would have tried to make Ezra into one of them as well. Made him break or… Gotten rid of him. But, Maul had said, they all broke eventually. Ezra thought he was probably ill-suited to being an Inquisitor. He didn’t want to know what sort of breaking that might entail. Being the Apprentice of a former Sith Lord was difficult and at times dangerous, his master was still complicated and volatile, but… It was a much preferable position.
Maul’s explanation was fair enough. There were no temples for what they were now. Maul was certainly not Jedi, but not exactly Sith. Ezra was certainly not Sith, but not exactly Jedi either. Both of them misfits in a way, he supposed. Complements to each other. Maybe that was what Maul had wanted. He still spoke about the rule of two, and while he trained others in combat, like Qi’ra, Ezra was the only one he trained in the Force. The only one he called ‘Apprentice’.
Should that truly have been a point of pride? Or, given the stories Maul told, of Sith Masters and Apprentices, should it be something that frightened him? Ezra couldn’t say.
“Do you think the Inquisitors will be there?” Ezra asked. He tried not to be, but he was still shaken from their first meeting. According to Maul, the Inquisitors currently thought Ezra dead, which gave him a modicum of safety as long as he continued to lie low.
“They shouldn’t know about this place. At least, not yet. I’m sure they’ll be tracking the Crimson Dawn. But, we will still be there first.” He took a moment to study Ezra’s face, the way he stood, the way he gripped his light saber. “Fear is good, you should let it free, as long as it can’t be sensed by others who would wish to pounce on it.”
Wasn’t that just another contradiction?
Maul studied him another moment. “I’ve been to many temples like this since I… Left the Sith.” That was something Maul never really spoke on. Ezra had asked him, interested like any other kid would be, about the Clone Wars and his experiences then, but Maul… That had been something he remained silent on. “Jedi and Sith Temples both. They always involve some sort of trickery. If I could go alone, it might be easier for you to hide from the Inquisitors. But my Apprentice cannot hide forever. I think it is time you accompany me. I’ve meditated on it. The Force believes you ready.”
The Force did? Was that the light side of the Force or the dark side? Maybe it was neither. Maybe it was just an excuse Maul had come up with to bring him along. Not that he needed an excuse. As an Apprentice, wasn’t it his duty to follow his Master wherever he told him to go? Even if he was still frightened of the Inquisitors?
Or… Was this another attempt to have him face his fears head on? To embrace them, along with the other emotions the dark side employed? Perhaps the Inquisitors were already there. Perhaps Maul wanted Ezra to face them. Even if Maul thought he was ready… Ezra certainly didn’t feel the same way.
“Will you come with me, my Apprentice?” Maul asked, as if Ezra was being given a choice. Ezra averted his eyes, instead focusing on the blue saber he still held in his hand. The things Maul had said about Sith Masters and Apprentices, the harsh training, the lack of trust, the animosity, the… The killing. The killing was the big one. He spoke of times he’d attacked his own Master, seeking to kill as if they were fond childhood memories. Perhaps to him they were, or at least the closest thing he had to them.
Ezra wouldn’t do that. And not only because he had more to learn from Maul. Ezra was no Sith. Even if the Inquisitors had gotten a hold of him, broken him in ways he couldn’t imagine, Ezra couldn’t be Sith. Too many rules to follow. Ezra never played by the rules, especially ones he didn’t agree with. If he didn’t want to follow the rules, he wouldn’t. Wasn’t that the freedom the Sith code spoke of? Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he didn’t understand that either.
Maybe he couldn’t be Jedi either. They too had rules to follow. Maybe Ezra was always meant to be something else. Learning from a Master who forged his own path was the best way for him. Maybe there was even a path Ezra could help forge as well. Whatever they forged, it had to be better than what Maul had come from.
Yet, the Sith rules Maul had taught him, not in a prescriptive way but taught him nonetheless, they remained in the back of Ezra’s mind. The Sith Code, the ruthlessness, the betrayal, the Rule of Two…
Ezra shut off the light saber. He put it on his belt to the side. Wasn’t it just what he knew? And now it was something Ezra knew as well. But it wasn’t all that Ezra knew. Maul’s teachings were eclectic, but Ezra supposed he appreciated that. Eclectic was how he learned best.
“When do we leave?”