Archive of Our Own ^beta

I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain
it must sometimes make a kind of singing.
And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps—
First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.
Robert Hass, “Faint Music”

He was staying in a cave. At the time, it had all seemed so important; the spying mission, information retrieval, target acquired, yes Master, no Master, let me prove myself. But all he remembered afterwards was the cave.

The planet was primitive, and the man he was assigned to track liked it that way. Maul spied on him from rooftops and cliffsides, single-minded to a fault. Determined to succeed. But he preferred more populated planets; the thatched huts and wooden buildings, combined with the small and insular population, made tracking difficult. But not impossible, of course. Not for him, the only hope of the coming Sith Empire. He toyed with the empty place on his belt where he'd put his lightsaber, when he was big enough, when he'd passed his Master’s tests.

He sat on the wooden roof, splinters catching his thin black tunic, and hoped it wouldn't rip. He hated sewing.

His target was below him; he spent his evenings here at the worn wooden bar, drinking his dark secrets away. Maul hadn't found out much, but he was young enough to be hopeful as he watched the sunlight disappear from the horizon, the stars appearing in the gaps between the clouds.

Beneath him, he heard a commotion; adrenaline shot him to his feet too fast, but he controlled himself, sliding silently down to hang off the roof over the window. He couldn't do much without risking being seen, but he saw movement by the smooth oak tables, people congregating, and-

He'd heard music before, in passing. Or with his Master, once or twice, when he'd done well enough to earn a brief rest, Master had pulled out a holocorder to listen to the opera. Drums he knew- he knew intimately the rhythm of his feet on a training mat, when they caught a cadence that mirrored his heartbeat. Strings, he'd heard. But this was so different, just voices overlapping, rising or falling in pitch, and yet- it caught his ear.

“An’ we dare not go a-hunting-

Let me tell you that I love you-

Remember me to one who lives there-

for fear of little men-

that I think about you all the time-

he once was-”

He swung back up onto the ledge of the roof and hugged his knees to his chest. There were several different voices, taking turns at different tunes; mostly one at a time, but when they sang all together, the same words with different notes, something in his chest started to throb, though he hadn’t been injured. The pain radiated out from the small, secret place over his heart, where his poorly-controlled emotions burst like small explosions.

For hours he sat and listened as they sang, making a game of it, memorizing the words and tunes while he waited on his target. They sounded sad, or happy, or soft; he couldn't imagine feeling the things they did. He wanted to soak in the words, he wanted to kill them all, he wanted to burst through the window and demand why, why do you have this thing that I can't make sense of when I am going to be so much greater-

The door creaked open. With no small amount of self-recrimination, Maul hauled himself onto the roof, and went to follow his target home. The voices faded with the distance.

The man had eaten and gone to bed without incident. Back to the cave he went, ashamed of himself without a clue as to why. He kicked his things- an emergency comm, a water skin, a handmade slingshot- out of their carefully disguised rock pile. The slingshot was carved from a broken tree limb, and he'd need it to hunt his dinner. He took it, his fingers running over the clumsy knife-strokes. It was serviceable, if unbalanced. Leaning down, he grabbed one of the stones he'd found that was the right size, and rolled it around his palm. Something about the pressure calmed his heart.

It was dark outside already; the small, nocturnal game was already out. He would have to eat eventually. But-

He turned to face the long black insides of the cave system; he could hear flapping echoing in its depths, and the slow dripping of underground pools. He took a deep breath, and without giving himself time to think, sang out.

“But the sea is wide, and I cannot swim over;” It sounded so loud, echoing into the belly of the caves, and the vibrations of his voice against his breastbone were like his own purring, when he or his Master forgot to force him to stop. He flowed from one note to another unevenly, and his voice shook, but he bobbed atop the music and it was like learning to swim.

“and neither ha-ave I-” On “I”, the highest note, he hit a point of resonance that shook his whole ribcage, and the shock of it, together with his lack of air, forced him to stop. The echo reverberated into the bowels of the cliffsides, and it sounded- beautiful.

That was me I made that it came from me and it was beautiful-

His stomach dropped. For a moment a terrible dread swept over him, the absolute knowledge that he'd done something wrong, that his Master was standing in the shadows, ready to hurt him for his tiny insurrection.

Overcome, Maul stood very still, the echo of his voice fading away in the darkness. The fluttering beat of his heart whispered, rebellion.

.

He told himself it was ridiculous, to feel afraid of music. Of all things. It could not hurt him; it could not even make his Master hurt him. Surely it was too inconsequential, it was a stupid harmless useless talent like being able whistle or bend his finger-joints backwards. It was worth nothing. It didn’t matter.

It wasn’t rebellious, of all things.

Still; it was a hobby unbefitting a Sith. He did not allow it to cross his mind often.

(But when he had a moment to himself- not training, studying, running errands, fixing his ship- he made a quiet, concealed study of poetry and songs. He did not sing them; despite all his dismissal of his own voice’s power, he didn’t quite dare; but thinking them helped him sleep, sometimes.)

.

When Maul fought, he never allowed himself time to think. In the space between one thought and another lay enough time to be cut down.

And when he was-

When he was-

He fell, and his only thought was a song: “O tie me to a plank so wide, and throw me in the sea; and if I sink, then let me sink; but if I swim, just leave me be.”

.

They tied him to a plank so wide, and threw him in the sea; he did not sink, though they bade him sink; he swam, they let him be.

It was dark, and he couldn’t feel his legs, and the Force spoke to him all in wild music.

What will you leave to your brother john-

Through power i gain victory through passion i gain strength-

Mother o mother it’s we were yours, all alone and lonely-

The gallows-tree to hang him on-

Tongue-tied i am bound to weave my words with thistle-down-

Passion strength power victory you lied to me Master you lied

We dare not go a-hunting-

Scarlet fine was our own heart’s blood down by the greenwood only-

It was his hatred that kept him alive, but the songs floating in the Force were what he stayed alive for.

.

His other face pulled him to the end of the tunnel; he kept stumbling, they both did, Maul because he couldn’t seem to tell where his body was at the best of times. But his other face didn’t know the way, hadn’t been with him for long. So long. How long? Was it himself or someone else, a reflection or a refraction or a mirage? Oh, they will turn me in your arms to a newt or snake, but hold me tight and fear me not didn’t he know it was dangerous?

“No, we can’t.” He pulled back his hand from the other’s, but without the steady pull forward he toppled backwards, and screeched.

“Brother!”

“Can’t go out it hurts they won’t let-” He babbled, sprawled on his back. There was pain, stabbing pain somewhere along his back, but he couldn’t tell where and what was the use of pain if you didn’t know what you were being punished for?

“Why can’t you go out?” There was something on his hand, wrapped around, and he tried to pull away, but something dug pressure into the middle of his palm and eased his panic. He whined, feeling something warm and forbidden grow under his ribcage.

“Can’t, it hurts, not allowed, can’t- can’t see.” Out of words, he tried to locate his hand, where the pressure was, but it was too far away, somewhere out in space.

“Oh. Oh, the light, it hurts your eyes?”

How did his other face not know this? It was his own, gold eyes reflecting what little light the tiny greasefires provided underground, black markings spread across the skin. Was that what he looked like? It had been a long time since he had seen his own face. It may well have been.

“Here. Here. Shhh, brother, shhh.” His other face made soothing noises as foreign hands came into his vision. He flailed with the hands that were too far away, knowing that touch always meant pain, but unable to prevent the blackness dropping over his eyes.

“No,” he moaned, helpless, “no, Master, mercy, please- I didn’t mean to-”

“Shhh, shh.” His other face, who somehow existed even unseen, and the calming pressure on one faraway hand, guided him back through the darkness, raising his head up to tie something around his horns. A deep, clumsy voice murmured nonsense and lullabies; “Coo roo koo, cooruku, stick-stock stone dead, lay down your head, and I’ll sing you a lullaby, back to the years of loo-li lai-lay...”

It was music, and it was new, and it was enough. Between the low voice, the blindfold, and the steady pressure on his palm, he allowed himself to be lead out of the tunnels.

.

Sanity returned, in fits and spurts. His new legs made him feel clumsy and strange, something in their green-mist construction keeping his head from clearing entirely: at times, he seemed to be a small child, still with his Master and eager to please; at others, he was back on Lotho Minor, seething and raving in the dark.

From every delusion he awoke to Savage holding his hand, rubbing slow circles into his palm. Sometimes he sang, or hummed. When he talked, rarely, he called Maul Feral, as though it was his name.

Maybe it was. Maybe he had been named something before Sidious took him, maybe there was some part of his life that the Sith had never touched.

More probably, Talzin had simply sent a madman to fetch him for her.

But as mad as he might have been, Savage’s kindness kept him sane enough to bait Kenobi, which was all he needed. And the moment he no longer needed coddling, he could toss Savage out an airlock. (He certainly didn't care. He absolutely didn't wake from his nightmares calling Savage’s name, or quietly offer his hand to be held in the darkness.)

One night, sometime after recruiting the pirate scum, Maul came upon him in the pilot’s chair of the ship they'd stolen; as hopeless as Savage was at piloting, the cockpit, with its racing view of the stars, was his favorite part of the ship.

“...but sure a body’s bound to be a dreamer, when all the things he loves are far away…”

Maul crept forward, silent, fascinated and frightened and jealous all at once at the sound of his brother’s clear, deep voice.

“... and precious things, are dreams, unto an exile; they take him over land, and ‘cross the sea,.…”

A sick horror rose in Maul’s chest as he realized something in him needed this quiet, sad, kind man; that if he lost Savage, he would leave something of himself behind with his brother, and it felt like it was ripping him to pieces. Panic clawed at his throat as he tried to breathe, old instincts clamoring Master will hurt me for this. He pressed one hand tight over his mouth, trying not to cry out, and sunk his teeth into his first three fingers, desperate to anchor himself to reality.

He coughed and spat, realizing all at once that he hadn't bathed in more than ten years, which gave his wayward mind just enough leeway to lose it completely.

There was an awful clattering as his metal legs splayed out on the cockpit floor, useless, and a strangled scream escaped him as a vision of his old training room dropped in front of Maul’s eyes; his Master standing in silent judgement as a medical droid twisted his broken wrist.

Savage growled, his lightsaber igniting, and depowering quite suddenly as he saw the source of the commotion. He sighed.

“Oh, brother.” He grasped the hand that Maul had bitten, blood seeping slowly out of the teeth marks, and groaned.

Still shuddering miserably, Maul murmured excuses and apologies to a Master twenty years in the past, not at all noticing Savage’s standard pressure-point approach to his brother’s drifting consciousness.

The blood began to drip to the floor in fat drops. Savage let go of his brother’s hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, and he eyed Maul’s scarred, scabbed, dirty skin with distaste.

Maul didn't notice Savage’s brief absence, preoccupied with trying to explain a mission he couldn't remember to a Master that wasn't there. But he did notice a warm, wet cloth being gently applied to his fingers, and the sting of an antiseptic. The training room wavered, the looming shadow of his Master briefly overlaying his brother, bent over his newly-bandaged hand, before disappearing entirely.

“Why…” He managed, his throat feeling raw.

“Hush.” Satisfied with the bandages, Savage wrung the cloth out into a metal bucket, and dipped it back into a bowl of water.

When he laid it along Maul’s forearm, the warmth was briefly pleasing before it started to sting; he snarled faintly, trying to wriggle away, through the metal wall at his back.

Savage’s broad hand grabbed him around the wrist, using the cloth with his other to scrub at the scratch marks over Maul’s veins.

Maul jerked his arm backwards, a reflexive yelp of “stop!” escaping him before he could think.

He froze. Not allowed not allowed weak you can’t take it he’s going to hurt you-

So did Savage, still holding the bloodstained cloth that appeared to have once been a shirt. In the dim starlight of the cockpit, the reflected light from both their naturally-nocturnal eyes lit up very little but each other’s faces. He sank backwards, sitting cross-legged on the floor, with the bloody cloth in his lap.

Maul hardly breathed. The concept that he could say stop and someone would listen created the same fluttering tightness in his chest as the first, and only, time he'd sang. After going so long without it, the feeling ached in that tender spot over his heart.

Eventually, he lowered his arm, offering it to his brother. Savage didn't hold him by the wrist this time, instead laying his hand down beneath Maul’s arm as a surface to press against.

Savage scrubbed his left arm until his wounds bled fresh, and then dried, disinfected, and bandaged them. The wrung-out water going into the bucket was a dark, unpleasant color.

Through the whole procedure, Maul noticed long scabs running along Savage’s cheek, nail-shaped and deep. He flexed his right hand, feeling the tightness of something lodged under his fingernails.

When his arm was done, Savage beckoned him closer, and closer, until his forehead was almost on his brother’s chest, the base of his front horn pressing into Savage’s skin. He proceeded to clean and dress all the minor injuries and infections Maul had inflicted on himself in his last few months underground, whether out of clumsiness or self-loathing.

He felt, rather than heard, the bass rumble of Savage’s purring. Something deep in his chest wanted to make an answering sound, but he stilled it; he had more than enough practice. It was a comfort, the soft vibration against the base of his horns, and he managed to close his eyes, feeling as safe as he ever had.

Hours later, when his brother helped him up, he stood on uncooperative legs, feeling cleaner than he'd ever been in his life, and leaned close to rest his forehead against Savage’s shoulder.

Savage’s calloused hand rested against the back of his neck, and two roaring beasts had an awful battle in Maul’s gut: one sentimental and soft; the other hard, sharp-edged, poisonous.

.

They stumbled into the escape pod moments before the ship blew, both of them panting and shaking. Savage held his right arm- what was left of it- and slumped against the wall. His hand trembled, but his face was blank.

“Brother,” he gasped, and Maul almost tripped himself trying to get to him.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he clamped his hands down to stop bleeding that wasn’t happening; instead, there was the Nightsisters’ green-mist magic seeping from the wound. It had no smell or texture, but its aura in the Force was nauseating. “I’m here,” he said again, at a loss.

Savage’s hand moved up, away from the horribly solid stump of his arm, and he looked away.

It was terrible in its impossibility- the lack of blood or gore made Savage seem less real. Under Maul’s hands it was warm skin, but it was too clean, without even a burn scar. The smooth, healthy skin of the wound looked like plasticine.

With one of Maul’s legs listing the way it was, he was at eye-height with Savage; he stared his brother straight in the face, seeing fear in his eyes without hating him for it.

“It’s-” but what could he say? The loss of a limb was devastating, with no parts with which to make a prosthetic, even. The lack of necessary medical care was almost a curse; if Maul had needed to bandage the wound he wouldn’t have felt it necessary to calm his brother.

He moved his hands, one to Savage’s injured shoulder, the other to his leftmost horn. It was long enough Maul could curl his fingers around it. “You are strong,” he said, repeating the most treasured thing his Master had ever said to him, “and you will survive.”

Savage leaned his head into Maul’s hand, his eyes closing. His remaining hand came up to his chest, and Maul could hear him purring.

He gritted his teeth. He had done that, as a small child, to soothe himself into sleep or out of pain. But as much as the purring helped, the pain he’d alleviated had been nothing compared to his Master’s punishment for noise-making.

For a moment, he pushed past his old fear to try and find the source of the vibrations in the base of his throat, to try to make the soft noise that had comforted him and earned him pain in equal measure. But between the adrenaline of the fight, his panicked heartbeat, the hatred coursing hot and acidic through his veins- it wasn’t there.

Maul tightened his hand around Savage’s horn, and leaned his head close. The empty stillness in his chest was somehow as terrible as the void outside the escape pod.

They drifted through space uncaring, and eventually they knelt down, seating themselves on the floor. They didn’t let go of each other.

Without anything more useful to do, Maul stroked his fingers against his brother’s horn. Savage moved his head into the steady touch, bright gold eyes opening a little as his purring got louder; genuine pleasure instead of self-soothing. The steady noise vibrated against Maul’s other hand, and a quiet idea occurred to him.

He began to hum, the wavering tone of it matching the low note of Savage’s purring. He cast his mind about for his songs, and hummed Tam Lin, all the way through. And then Molly Malone, and Elfin Knight; and ones he never found the titles of, had only memorized in passing from someone he was spying on.

When Savage fell asleep, or possibly unconscious, Maul forced himself up and away, scuttling back against the other wall. Why had he done that? It was not something becoming a Sith, for a Master to show affection for an Apprentice. It was not done. It was forbidden.

He tried to keep his distance, and then- he couldn’t stay away.

Maul splayed his damaged legs out on the floor, watching his brother. Keeping watch over his brother.

The heat gave out long before he fell asleep.

.

When he was young, there was one of his Master’s tests that Maul never fully passed.

Sidious would put him in proximity of something he desperately, physically needed; meat when he was starving, bacta for a seeping wound; heated blankets, on one memorable occasion when his Master had thrown him into a frozen lake. And then, order him to meditate. Six feet or less from what he wanted, his task was to focus his mind down to the minutiae of the Force, and stay absolutely still.

Granted, he’d never completely failed; even half-dead with starvation, his whole being shuddered at the prospect of taking the food without his Master’s permission. But neither had he ever been able to meditate properly, to forget his body’s needs and descend into the Force. He’d always found himself falling back into his body, using his own pain and need as fuel, and reassuring himself- the prize is still there. Even if I cannot have it, it is still there.

It was how he was beginning to feel about Savage; even if he wouldn’t permit himself to care, even if he called him apprentice instead of brother. Even though he kept him at arm’s length as much as his heart would let him, his brother was always there. Always within easy reach.

.

Opportunities presented themselves on Mandalore. Unfortunately for Maul, those opportunities came in the form of allies, which meant interacting with beings he wasn’t supposed to kill.

He’d never been terribly good at that.

He fell back on his favorite approach, which was to scare the hell out of them until they left him alone; within days, the men and women of Death Watch would scatter whenever he bared his teeth at them.

Savage, however, seemed to have no such problems cozying up to the Mandalorians; with every day they spent without contact from the Nightsisters, he became a little less disoriented, easier to talk to. They seemed to like him, even, which sent Maul into a seething rage for reasons he didn’t want to examine or admit to.

“Hey, big guy!” One of them called out to them from beside the bonfire; there was no question of to whom she was referring, with Maul’s new legs restoring him to his natural height. “C’mon over, spar with us.”

Next to him, Savage shook his head a little, absorbed in looking over his lightsaber. “I will not.”

“It’d be good practice,” another said, perched on a level tree stump.

“I use this-” he gestured with the double-bladed saber- “in battle, not in jest. I will not.”

The gathered Mandalorians- almost a dozen in all- groaned in exaggerated disappointment, with one at least trying to quiet them. “Shut up, the lot of you, he’s got a right to refuse.”

“Wanna drink, though?” One man slurred, holding a thermos of bathtub liquor. “‘S good.”

“It’s only good until you start to go blind, Cal.”

Oblivious to the criticism, Cal took another swig and started an off-key rendition of a drinking song; two voices joined in and the rest heckled, tossing discarded helmets at the soldiers making the racket.

Savage smiled gently, fixing his saber back to his belt. He took a few steps away from the doorway of their tent before looking back. “Brother?”

Maul scoffed. “Do as you will.”

Savage stared him down, blank-faced. It was something he’d always done, but with more personality behind his eyes, he looked like a parent waiting for a child to tire of throwing a tantrum.

Maul refused to be out-waited. He stormed out of the tent, to the outskirts of the fire-circle. The only empty seat left was next to the red-haired lieutenant, who was cleaning her weapons.

She bared her teeth up at him; she didn’t trust them, with good reason, which inclined Maul to treat her with less disdain. But still, her mistrust was a nuisance.

He sat as far from her as he could reach, not looking at Savage, who was towering over some soldiers while they slapped him on the back. Maul took out his saber, and the small tools he’d collected, and began to tinker with the casing. He didn’t listen to the soldiers trying to entertain his brother, or look at the distant expression on Savage’s face; like he was thinking of other comrades, other bonfires.

His halved saber, once a thing of beauty, was now as cobbled-together as Maul himself, and he’d needed to do countless modifications to even get it working again. Even after months of work, it wasn’t perfect, and would never be anything like its former glory. (He put the obvious metaphor for himself far out of his mind.)

The woman next to him was humming the kind of song he’d always preferred, simple and repetitive, and even as he glared at her, he memorized the tune. She caught sight of his annoyed scowl, and in response, began to put words to the melody.

“And as they stood at the river’s brim, the eldest pushed her sister in; ‘sister, sister, lend me your hand; oleander, eoling; and you’ll be the heir to my riches and land’; down by the waters rolling...”

A story ballad, and one about murder at that. Maul committed the words to memory, still pretending to work on his lightsaber.

“Oh sister, sister, lend me but your glove; oleander eoling; and you shall have my own true love; down by the waters rolling. It's your own true love I'll have and more; oleander eoling; but you shall never come to shore...” Her voice held a Core accent when she sang that it hadn’t when she spoke, and a hard, bitter expression crossed her face. “For your cherry cheeks and your long yellow hair; oleander, eoling; made me a maid for evermore...” She paused, her hands clenching the barrel of the blaster. “Don’t you have someplace better to be?”

“Don’t you?” He snarled, and headed back to the tent in a fury.

.

In the prison, they were walked past the Duchess the Death Watch had all spoken of so disdainfully. She sat on the bench in her cell, ignoring her surroundings with regal detachment, and recited poetry in a shaking voice.

“For it’s either a lady or a milk-white swan.
He dragged her out unto the shore,
And stripped her of all she wore.
By came a fiddler, and he was fair,
And he buskit his bow in her bonnie yellow hair."

They could still hear her in their cell down the hall, echoing through the silent prison. Maul twitched. It was the same thing he’d often done, running the words of a song through his mind as a meditation aid, and it galled him to hear this weak, foolish woman use his method.

Not that it stopped him from tucking the words away to use later.

“By came her father’s harper, and he was fine,
he made a harp of her bonny breast-bone.”

Savage leaned against the wall, appearing ready to move at any moment, and yet quite content. He was humming something to himself, a lullaby that had become rather familiar.

The words, as he remembered, were hopes for a child’s life of love and happiness; all foreign concepts to Maul, but it was something Savage sang to him when he descended into the darkest corners of his own mind, and it teased at a long-dead coil of memory. Maul remembered nothing before Mustafar, his small cell, his Master’s punishments when he cried or purred or made any kind of noise at all- at least he’d thought he didn’t. But the lullaby, the feel of Savage’s hand on his palm, or wrapped around his horns- they made something dormant twitch at the back of his mind.

Old nightmares of hands loosening on his waist, and then letting go entirely. The word aja, and then silence, and then- lightning.

“When they came to her father’s court,
The harp and fiddle these words spoke:”

The words where did you learn that lullaby were there, in his mind, but he couldn’t force himself to speak. He wasn’t supposed to ask questions, wasn’t allowed. He snarled at his own weakness; but still, he preferred the silence. Savage was still humming; the Duchess continued her recitation. He bit down his tongue, hard enough to taste blood

“Savage-” he began. Where did you learn that lullaby. What does ‘aja’ mean. Who are you to me, really. Would you leave me, if you remembered I wasn’t your Feral.

Would you take me back to the village with you.

He wasn’t allowed to ask questions.

“O God bless my father the king,
And I wish the same to my mother the queen.”

He lowered his head, growling, resisting the temptation to cover his ears with his hands. Make her shut up.

“‘Hang my dread sister,’ I heard it did say.
‘For she drowned me in yonder sea-”

.

The words were ringing through his head almost before he was awake, his mind trying to pull itself together after- after?

There was Force-lightning, he knew that; his teeth ached and he tasted metal, could feel his muscles still twitching. But what had he done wrong, was the critical question, because if he didn’t remember and Master asked him-

Ah. There came the memories, rising like dawn over his scrambled thoughts; his failure, his madness, his brother, his triumphs- his failure, again. (The word aja.) (The nightmares, the hands on his waist, letting him go.)

His brother’s death.

(Aja, screamed in a high voice, a child’s.)

His brother’s eyes, bright yellow, untinted by red; his hand clenched tight, the fear on his face. His brother- his-

Maul rolled to his side, the certainty that something was wrong spiking in his mind. He knew these attacks, which always came before or after a punishment; his heart would seize, all his muscles locked up. Sometimes he saw things. The first sign, as always, was panic. Panic and- forgetting words.

He couldn’t remember his own brother’s name, which was a cruelty he hadn’t thought his mind would inflict on him. He wanted to carve it into the sides of buildings, scream it from rooftops. But his damn brain tossed it out on a whim, the same way he’d dropped and begged his brother’s killer for mercy-

Stomach turning, he tried not to vomit. He’d not eaten in months, still surviving entirely on the Dark Side of the Force, and throwing up pure stomach acid was an experience he could do without.

He clamped one hand over his mouth and realized he was trembling; his legs made clanging noises on the metal cell as they jerked, out of his control. Light streaked across his vision.

No noise.

Tongue tied, I am bound, to weave my words with thistle-down.

No unnecessary noises.

His heart was beating so hard and fast he felt his ribs shudder with it, and the air felt too thick to breathe; he couldn’t stop the twitching of his fingers or the knocking of his horns against the metal floor.

Maul smelled hot metal, tasted blood, and fell unconscious.

.

He came to in restraints, held vertical with his arms over his head. He was despicably sore, and unsure of where he was. Also, someone had taken his shirt. Long minutes passed while he sorted through bits of dreams and foggy memories, putting everything back into place, cautious of triggering another attack.

The attack had been bad- he’d forgotten things before, but it was never anything with emotional weight. (Maybe, he reflected, that was because he’d never given a damn about anything before Savage.)

He forced himself to think of his brother- everything he’d said, the sound of his voice. His calloused hands and steady gaze. Savage’s presence in the Force had been a calm, cool darkness, a balm to Maul’s own raging, seething Force signature. He’d felt like deep water and the depths of caves, places where eyeless things lived and loved and died without ever needing light.

Maul held to his brother’s memory, and waited. Vengeance would present itself. He would not forget.

.

His Master came, his former Master, to reprimand him as though he were still a child, to taunt him with his replacement- Dooku. Whose Force signature bled thin, greyed-out darkness; as far as Maul was concerned, he was still a Jedi. Sidious couldn’t even train another proper Sith? Pathetic.

Maul clenched his teeth shut. He wouldn’t say a word if he didn’t have to, letting his hatred and anger fill him until he had no room left for grief.

(He thought, for a bare moment, about laughing in his Master’s face, about bursting into song, declaring that he could not be owned or controlled. But his throat was sore, his heart aching with loss, loss, gone forever, and it was like the moment in the escape pod, unable to purr; music and laughter were not his to use. He fell back to his hatred, to the way he’d been trained.)

Sidious did not return. Dooku did, with questions and lightning, but he had not refined his cruelty in the way of the Sith, still using a Jedi’s blunt methods.

Physical pain meant nothing. Electricity lanced through Maul’s bare chest- so that was why they’d taken his shirt- and he clung to the memory of Savage’s bright eyes.

.

When the Mandalorians came, he almost thought he was hallucinating- they’d painted their armor black and red, in some imitation of his markings. Why was another matter entirely, but he knew they’d come for him.

They got him to the ship in impressive time. His legs were still unsteady, the digital nerve endings unsure about all the electricity they’d endured, but he would make them work if he had to lift and lower them with the Force.

He staggered up the ramp as one of the men, helmet under his arm, came close, and held out something in his hand. A tunic, black, and in his preferred cut.

The soldier didn’t leave his side as Maul pulled it on, grousing internally as it yanked his aching head about by the horns. The ramp closed behind them, the engines readying. What was it Kenobi had said? Something about severing him at the neck instead of the waist? Maul briefly contemplated existence as a head in a jar as he stretched his sore, shaking arms. It didn’t sound so bad.

“Sir, we-” he hesitated as Maul turned, the light of his nocturnal eyes reflecting off the soldier’s pale face, his white-blonde hair. “We found your brother’s body in the palace.”

Maul was certain his expression did not change, but he felt his throat close, his breathing stop. At his sides, his hands curled into fists.

“We didn’t know the tradition of your people, so we gave him a Mandalorian warrior’s burial- burned with his weapon, ashes in the river.” He looked down at the ground, and the hand that didn’t hold his helmet went to his chest. “Nu Kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la. He marches to the great ocean, now.”

It had crossed his mind multiple times, the image of Savage’s body cooling on the marble floor, cold and still with no one to wrap a hand around a horn or purr against his chest or even bury him, left to rot like the worthless thing Sidious considered him. Maul had heard the word heartbreak before but he had never considered what it felt like until he pictured Savage’s body in that lonely, echoing place.

He considered the words thank you, but they did not form; his throat was frozen and silent.

“Do not speak to me of him,” Maul managed, hoarse.

The soldier’s face creased with something like sympathy, and Maul resisted the urge to tear his throat out.

.

With no other options left, he called upon the witch herself.

The way Savage had flinched whenever he heard her name made him hesitant, but she was from Dathomir- his home his birthplace his birthright- and could, presumably, be trusted. Enough to be called for help. He reached out to her in the Force, finding that clouding mist that he could recognize as her magic, and it took root in him, rising in his chest and twining around his heart.

Do not fight me, my child, she whispered in the Force. Become my vessel.

Talzin called him my son, and his heart jumped. He didn’t let it, didn’t want it to, but it was the same traitorous impulse as before. As much as he didn’t want to care, something in him leapt at the promise of family. And as much as he tried to tamp it down and stomp it out- it would still rise up to strangle him.

The bond between mother and child was strong; he’d severed enough of them to know. (And with that thought came- not guilt, exactly, but a twinge, an itch. He’d never been able to imagine how it felt to lose a loved one until he had. All the useless screaming and wailing made… significantly more sense, now.)

He knelt before her- her ghost, rather- and this time, at least, he knew where he stood. Only two; Master and Apprentice. Not brothers. Not equals.

He knew where he was now meant to be; at his Mother’s feet, at her right hand, slightly behind. Ready to share in her power. He clenched his right hand, crushing the ghost of Savage’s fingers on his palm.

.

Mother O mother it’s we were yours, all alone and lonely

.

As odd as it seemed, Maul had never met other Nightbrothers; he’d not even known there was a word for what he was until he’d spoken with Talzin. He’d never considered how many shades they came in, the stunning variety of their markings. The incomparable steel of their stances, the untrained Force-power radiating from them. He had only a moment to see them before Grievous’ ship got into range, and he was rather glad of it; they seemed fuller than he was, less strong but more sure. They knew who they were, where they came from; they hadn’t scraped the broken pieces of themselves up after a Sith Lord’s destructive tutelage like himself, or even like Savage.

He had enough time to look Brother Viscus in the eye, and reach out to his clumsy, amorphous Force signature; it felt like strong determination, and a memory of open sky over mountains. Old, and steady, and free.

Maul felt a surge of sick jealousy as he sprinted off. He'd never been free in his life.

.

The next time he saw Viscus, his steadfast presence in the Force was leaden with grief; he had Dooku in custody and fourteen dead Nightbrothers at his feet.

Maul did not look at the bodies. In particular not the yellow-skinned men. He stepped straight to Dooku, with a good idea of what the man would be facing for failing Sidious. There was some pleasure there- that his enemy- his replacement- would face the same punishments he once had.

He ignored the impulse to gloat, at least for a moment. “Kast,” he said, not taking his eyes off Dooku. “Arrange funeral rites for these men. Get as many soldiers as possible to help, and send anyone surplus here as guards for our... guests.”

Behind Dooku, he saw Viscus’ eyes flash as he inclined his head in respect.

.

It took quite a long time to get everything arranged, but time was not of the essence here. He could afford a moment of respect for fallen warriors.

The funeral pyre was constructed, the bodies laid side-by-side-by-side, with blasters and staffs each placed with care by their owner; almost three dozen soldiers in total. The Mandalorians, all familiar with their tradition, took their helmets off in respect, lined up at a safe distance from the pyre. When it was lit, a great cry went up. Part victory and part shrieking grief, every soldier who’d lost a close comrade wailed or roared or sobbed.

Maul stood at a distance, his hands clasped behind him. He winced; from the noise or the blatant emotional display, he wasn’t sure- either could easily overwhelm him. Both at once was almost intolerable; he’d be hiding away in a ship if he didn’t have an irrational urge to stand vigil, for his own soldiers and for men he did not know.

He knew without looking that Viscus was behind him, stepping lightly but with just enough noise to be heard. He halted his approach when he reached Maul’s side, leaving some, but not much, space between their shoulders.

“You were not raised a Nightbrother.” Viscus stated. His face was blank and stony; it would have reminded Maul of Savage, if Viscus had a tint of warmth to his eyes.

“I was not.”

“That would be why...” He gestured to the fire, high and crackling, and the gathered soldiers, still making a spectacle of their grief. “We are not accustomed to such displays.”

“Nor am I. But I was never taught your traditions.” Maul glanced at him, feeling at once desperately angry and almost... shy. “This will do.”

Viscus shrugged. “Until we return to Dathomir, perhaps. There, we will do our own mourning.”

Something in the way he said we caused a tightness in Maul’s chest; he had no doubt that he was being extended an invitation, to be part of the people he was stolen from. Forgetting his thin veneer of dignity, he turned his head to stare openly at Viscus.

“We?” he repeated, slightly shocked.

“I would teach you our songs, our stories.” Viscus said- still looking ahead, to the funeral pyre. The initial blaze was quieting, the flames not so high. “There is time, now, without the Sisters.”

“Songs,” Maul whispered, feeling light with hope and terror.

Viscus turned to look at him, the harsh gold of his eyes softening as he appeared to see something familiar in Maul’s face. “Yes. Songs for harvest, songs for handfastings. Songs of mourning,” he nodded to the pyre. “Lullabies for our children. Hymns to the Sisters and the sacred darkness, stories told in music. It is how we endure hardship.”

Maul rather lost track of his breathing for a moment, stunned. His long, hidden, shameful study of music had been, not a weakness, but a return to the culture of his birth. A true rebellion- something within him that was outside the Sith. Something real and true that belonged to himself and to his family.

I am not yours, he thought hazily, Sidious’ face leering in his mind’s eye. I was never yours, not entirely.

Viscus stared into what was left of the fire, watching as the Mandalorians slowly quieted and dispersed. And towards the drifting embers he sang a few lines, soft and low. A mourning song, a hymn.

“But summer’s gone, and all the flowers falling; ‘tis you, ‘tis you must go, and I must bide.”

“Really, there should be more of us.” Viscus said, still staring down the fire. “Every man’s line of brothers, all together at the base of the mountain as the holy men take the bodies to the summit for the sky-birds. And between the birds, the wind, and the song, they would be... carried away.” He closed his eyes, and reached out one open hand over his head, closing it as he brought it down to rest against his heart.

Maul watched him, transfixed, heart trembling on the edge of something he hadn’t known was within him; he reached out one shaking hand, and did the same. Oddly enough, when he closed his hand around empty air and pulled his fist to his chest, the unreal ache that he had carried since his brother’s death... eased. Not much, not enough to quiet the intangible agony of it, but even the most minor relief made him suck in a breath like he had been drowning for the weeks since he had last held his brother’s hand.

His shoulders dropped their regimented posture, his head drooping a little; his soldiers had scattered for drinks and preparations. There was no one to see him neglect his composure but the ghost of Master Sidious that lurked in his head. He ignored its spitting accusations of weak, worthless, you cannot let your guard down not even for a moment, and looked to Viscus with his hands at his sides, lax and unprepared to defend himself. Biting down on his tongue, he struggled to stay relaxed.

Viscus eyed him, his stare uncomfortably open, like he could see the minor battle Maul was fighting for his friendly posture. He closed his eyes, slow and careful, and then opened them again; too slow to be a blink, it had the air of a respectful nod.

Cautious, Maul blinked back, making himself clench his eyes shut before opening them again, too quickly to be as respectful as Viscus- whose lips twitched in what might have been the beginnings of a smile.

The Mandalorians gone from the field, surrounded by deactivated droids, Maul and Viscus stood vigil for the dying fire.

.

“Could you-” Maul tensed as Viscus swiveled to look him in the eye. They stood still for a moment, staring each other down in the thin hall of the ship with one flickering light.

To his credit, Viscus seemed to realize that his stare was what had shocked Maul into silence, and he blinked, looked away.

Maul would’ve thanked him for it if he hadn’t been caught up in berating himself for his hesitation, taking up valuable time when their journey was relatively short- he bared his teeth, forcing the thoughts away for later, but it was like sitting in that damn cell with Savage, unable to ask, unable to purr or cry or laugh or do any damn thing that reasonable sentients should be able to do-

“The mourning song-” Maul forced himself to say, before the worst of his mind took him over and drove him back into his quarters, exercising madly, trying and failing to recapture the perfect, painful clarity of mind that he remembered from before his bisection.

“Yes, I would teach it to you,” Viscus said. “I said I would, and I will. Now? Or later?”

“Now.” Maul gritted his teeth. The journey was short, there was no training room here, and his clean, precise mind had been rotted away on Lotho Minor. There was no point in delaying anything that would distract him from his dysfunctional thoughts.

.

They ended up in a maintenance closet; Viscus looked uneasy, but with the only entrance blocked and all the walls visible, Maul felt as safe as he ever did. He’d noticed that he had a preference for small spaces, when he allowed himself to have preferences. He settled atop a stack of boxes- he liked being up high, too- and watched Viscus coolly.

“I’m not climbing up there. My knees aren’t so young anymore.” Viscus hoisted himself up to sit on a single box, groaning as he did. “The boys are always telling me to take it easy on the knee, but seems like I never listen soon enough to stop it getting stiff.”

“Boys?” Maul asked, trying quite hard to be polite, for once.

Viscus smiled, the first he’d seen on the older man’s face. “My brothers. Terror and Horror- twins. Vanishingly rare- and they both survived into their Acceptance and their first Trials, even though they’re twenty-five damn summers old and still call me Aja.”

Maul started. That word- the one from his nightmares- “They call you- what?” He tried, and failed, to keep the longing out of his voice. Greed weakness you cannot want anything if you want something it can be used against you-

“Aja?” Viscus shifted, clicking his tongue absently. “It's a… Term of affection. It's a short form of our word for Eldest- like calling your mother mama.”

There are almost too many questions to ask, and Maul can barely bring himself to asks the first. “Eldest what?”

Viscus stared up at him. “Eldest brother.” The obviously was not spoken, but its presence was there. He rubbed one hand over his eyes. “I can't- there is so much you don't know, that I don't know how to explain. That I oughtn’t need to explain to you- you should have been raised with us, knowing all of this.”

Maul bit down on his tongue, hard enough to draw blood; he felt a flash of hatred for Sidious, but too quickly it was replaced by shame, by the illogical feeling that, raised a Nightbrother or not, he shouldn’t have to be told this. It should already be in him, as integral as the marrow of his bones. Like the music, like the purring.

“The Sisters don't- didn't- raise their own babies. If they were born-” he gestured to his face, his markings, his horns, “they gave the child to us. And we-” Viscus stopped again, his hands tightening on his knees. “We can never trust that we won't be called to serve the Sisters. At any moment, we could be- we could leave, never to return. So, we don't give the infant to someone who could be taken from them at any time. We give them to an older child.”

An older child- Elder brother- Maul had a flash of a face, child-round and yellow-skinned, with deep gold patches that were darkening into Nightbrother markings. Arms around his waist. Hands letting him go.

He wondered if that boy had grown up to remember him, once in a while. The child he couldn’t keep and couldn’t save.

“Mostly we don’t speak Old Nightbrother, even to each other, but it has its uses. There are a few ideas that Basic has no words for. Aja comes from jaman’na, which means Eldest.” Between the two n’s Viscus made a clicking noise at the back of his mouth, so loud in the small space that Maul jumped. “And there are Old Nightbrother prayers that are recited-”

“How did you make that noise?” Maul demanded.

Viscus looked puzzled. “The-?” He made it again- a thick rapping noise, made with the tongue on the roof of the mouth. Maul tried, momentarily, but it didn’t happen.

“Like this- get down here,” Viscus said, waving him down.

Maul’s hackles rose a little- who was Viscus to order him around- but his curiosity was stronger than his pride. He leapt from the box stack, his metal legs making a commotion on the metal floor, and stood across from Viscus. He crossed his arms, feeling like a child at his lessons.

“Like this,” he said, tilting his chin up, showing his tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth.

Maul imitated him, feeling foolish. Three or four clicks sounded as Viscus did it, over and over, but he couldn’t see how- he pressed his tongue against the backs of his teeth, worrying the sharp points until his tongue was scraped and raw. He grimaced as the feeling that all of this was wrong crawled up his back.

“Try again.” Viscus encouraged, but he- he couldn’t, didn’t Viscus see that if he didn’t get it immediately, there was no point? That he was- fundamentally useless, unable to do the simplest things, too monstrous for the sane but too weak to be of any use to the true monsters. Maul bared his teeth, his eyes clenching shut.

Before he realized he’d moved, his head was in his hands and he was shaking with the force of worthless, worthless racing through his mind in his Master’s angry hiss. Poison coursed through his veins- he needed to train, needed to be punished for failure, for his constant failures. He dug his nails into his own skin, a thin, sour relief filling him when he knew he’d drawn blood.

Viscus was calling his name, steady and sane, a relentless call of “Maul? What are you doing can you hear me Maul” but the only people who had ever called him by name so plainly were Sidious and Kenobi, both of them with fire in their eyes. His name had never been a thing of affection. He dug his nails in deeper, messing his fingers in his blood. Blood on his hands. How fitting. This pain, this anger and acidic self-hatred- he could use it, if he bottled it and stowed it away, but it felt too right to simply let it run its course, the mutilation he was causing a momentous relief of the pressure inside his head.

Someone grabbed him by the wrist- he lashed out nails-first, hissing and spitting. He didn’t follow the blow through when he’d struck, crouching back into himself. All he wanted was to be left alone to his punishment. Blood trickled past his eye, and he wiped it away, irritated, as he returned his hand to the wound.

“Maul!” His name was shouted, and it hit him like a blow to the stomach, leaving him breathless and stunned. Completely on reflex, he dropped to his knees.

He looked up at Viscus, now back to himself completely, and from the empty obedience that his subservient response had left behind, a flaming rage grew. Maul snarled, feeling something dragged out into the open that was intensely, shamefully private. He showed his teeth, drawing his reluctant feet up into a ready stance and picturing the other man's body lying on the ground, unable to tell anyone the shameful weakness of what he'd seen, his neck broken or his eyes out or- no no no ally not allowed ally do not-

“Don’t you dare,” he growled, stumbling into the back wall. He felt absurdly betrayed. “You have no right-” He fumbled for the control panel, unlocking the door with frantic speed. Only his Master should ever have seen him like that, should be able to reach into his brain and twist, no one else could humiliate him that utterly. No one else was allowed.

“Wait,” Viscus said, his hand reaching out, but his commanding tone only strengthened Maul’s resolve and anger. He hissed- can't kill him still need him can't kill him yet- and fled.

He spent the remainder of the journey training in whatever empty space he could find, until it seemed that he had burned all of the venom out of his system. There was no mention of the mourning song, and when he found himself reciting songs in his mind, he returned his nails to the slow-healing wound between his front horns.

He didn’t speak to Viscus again.

.

They had to drag him to the ship, nothing left in his world but Mother, help her, if I can get to her I can help, Mother, Mother, NO, as Talzin’s body smoked and dissolved. In his fury, he reached out in the Force, clawing for the dormant bond between himself and Sidious, the all-consuming desire to hurt clouding everything that was real. He struck out as he hadn’t since his Trials, when his Master had pretended that there was another apprentice, a rival to Maul who was coming to kill him; and it was the same screaming desperation of a man with nothing left.

He connected with his former Master with a vengeance, colliding with his presence in the Force, crashing up against his shields like a wave meeting a wall- and breaking through.

Sidious’ Force signature washed over Maul, and he gagged; he’d forgotten the raw, boiling darkness that was locked behind Sidious’ shields. It seemed to close over his head, leaving him breathless and sick; all at once, he could feel icy lake water dragging him down, dinkos burying their fangs in his skin, infected plasma burns along his arms, the terrifying crack as Sidious broke his leg, lightning grounding itself in his fractured bones.

Yet somehow worst of all was the knowledge that he had failed, so completely as to have been abandoned.

As far as Sidious was concerned, Maul was nothing, not even an adversary. He went limp in Kast’s grip, not hearing her grunt as she took the brunt of his weight. How could he have forgotten just how weak he was compared to Sidious, how pathetic.

“Raze the planet. Leave no sentient alive.” Maul heard through the bond.

He struggled to get his legs underneath him and his arm off of Rook, and leaned against the closed ramp of the ship. “No,” he begged, oblivious to his physical distance from the order being given. “No, please, no.”

“Sir? Are you all right?” Kast stepped backwards, her hands raised as though she were trying to tame a wild animal. He turned his eyes to the porthole window, seeing a hundred droid carriers descending from the orange sky. Their ship rose, and he could see the city beneath them, Viscus’ gutted body lying on what had become a battlefield, lines of droids blanketing fire on the Holy City. More ships were descending every moment, and the blaster fire had become a steady roar.

He collapsed on the floor of the ship, unable to hear the Mandalorians’ cries of concern over the howling din as every Force-sensitive being on Dathomir died, slowly, agonizingly, by the hundreds. The pain of it seeped through every crack in his shields, weighing him down until he could hardly feel his body at all in the swirling sea of fear, hatred, death.

But there were some final things Sidious had not taken from him after all; he raised a half-remembered hand to what he thought was his face, lost in the Force and the screaming, and it was wet. When he concentrated, he could feel his shoulders shaking as, without his input or consent, he cried for the first time since he was a child.

And vibrating to the tune of the blaster fire was purring, a quieting hum in the base of his throat, a tiny bastion of peace among the chaos of loss and pain. The soothing buzz of it resounded through his bones, calmed his quivering heartbeat. He had it. He had it back.

The ship rose, but they were not off the planet yet, not even out of the atmosphere. Certainly not out of range for a Sith Master to feel even a former Apprentice. Even if he couldn’t hear Sidious, he knew he could be heard.

Not yours, not yours, not yours, he broadcast in Sidious’ direction, like a victory march, like a freedom song.

Not yours. Never yours.

Maul threw back his head and laughed through his tears.

.

They say there’s a ghost on Malachor, somewhere in the ruins of the Sith temple. Rumors persist of something hiding in the depths, barely heard but always hunting.

They say if you listen, you can hear the ghost laughing.

And they say that it sings.