Chapter Text
In hindsight, maybe Devon should have listened a little better when Maul tried warning her the troopers currently hot on her tail were not the garden-variety stormtroopers she was used to dealing with.
Stormtroopers, for example, tended to rely more on luck than skill when it came to aiming.
Stormtroopers were about as smart as the dumbest B-1 battle droids, which was saying a lot.
Stormtroopers weren’t trained to expect their attacks to be redirected back at them, and didn’t have armor that could send their own bolts back at Devon as they deflected using their own armor. Stormtroopers wore armor that was worth nothing against her attacks, that melted easily under her saber blade and did little to protect the soft bodies inside from easily administered blunt force trauma.
The troopers about to bear down on Devon were not stormtroopers; and Maul warned her, in his own, cryptic way. He warned her of their gleaming, black armor and their higher skill sets and their brutal strength, of their endurance that made stormtroopers look like lazy children playing harmless games.
So maybe Devon should have listened when Maul warned her the usual tactics wouldn’t cut it this go-round, instead of ending up cut off from her escape route and sprinting down yet another long hallway with no real idea where she was going.
Despite being Venator-class, the Empire’s star destroyers didn’t match the old Republic specs, and not for the first time, Devon found herself turned around in what should have been a familiar layout. But she knew the information she’d been after for months now wouldn’t be held on just any destroyer, and as long as she could make it off the ship, the data stick tucked safely inside her vest might finally have the answers she’d worked so hard to locate.
Just as Devon skidded to a stop at a three-way juncture, the comm clipped to her collar beeped and a familiar voice filtered through.
“Uh, Devon, you missed the pick-up…” The voice only made Devon sigh, sharp and exasperated, as she sliced through the door with her saber before the black-clad troopers behind her caught up. “Everything okay down there?”
Just as the door finally gave away enough for Devon to kick it down, she reached up to quickly connect her own comm and snap, “I’m working on it!”
If Rylee responded, it was lost to the screech of blaster bolts zipping past Devon’s right cone. While she didn’t feel the sensitive skin burn, her hearing was nothing but a dull whine filling her senses, and her balance wobbled as she stumbled around another corner. This time, she finally found what she was looking for: the maintenance bay.
Hoping her comm was still connected even in her reckless dashing around, Devon bit out, “Runaway, I’ll meet you along the exterior of the port-side wing.”
“You’ll meet us where?!” Rylee sounded more than a little confused, something she knew he was still working on when it came to these infiltration missions. “Uh, I mean- copy that. On route to… the port-side wing.”
The maintenance bay was, thankfully, mostly empty, and after closing and locking the door and adding a few storage crates with a shove of one clenched fist, it took only seconds for Devon to cut down the two officers stationed. It wasn’t even a fight, since all it took was slamming them back against the wall. Without armor, they fell unconscious with one hit.
Barely a minute later, now dressed in a stolen spacesuit and with an extra blaster clipped to the suit’s utility belt along with her saber, Devon activated the release hatches of both sides of the decompression chamber’s access portals. The doors slid open as the ship-wide alarm screeched around her, nearly drowning out the sounds of the troopers now trying to break into the bay through the door she’d just blocked off. As soon as the second portal door opened, the vacuum of space sent the miscellaneous work benches and supply shelves and the unconscious bodies of the two Imperials flying out into the emptiness.
Devon, prepared for this, maintained her stance thanks to the grav-lock in the stolen suit’s boots and her own self control, aided with an instinctive pull of the Force. Instead of getting yanked out into space, she made the journey in a more controlled, if rushed, manner.
Once she was outside and clinging to the exterior hull of the star destroyer, she closed her eyes and reached back to the sensors to flip the switch back where she’d found it. The portal doors slid shut again, leaving her safe, at least from the troopers. She was, technically, one misstep from ending up as space-junk, but she much preferred that danger to the prior.
Carefully, Devon pulled herself up the edge of the star destroyer’s body. The maintenance suit she’d stolen was designed for exactly this, with tiny, air-powered thrusters triggered by autosensors along her limbs, automatically aiding her movements to allow for less energy exertion. While designed for Humans, she was small enough that even her lekku didn’t feel too cramped in the helmet, even if she had to keep them tucked into the collar around her neck.
Finally, she managed to reach the high point of the large wing of the destroyer, and she stood on her own two feet and glanced around. “Any day now, Runaway…” she muttered, head on a swivel as she hunted for her rescue.
She heard the screech of the TIEs before she saw the Runaway, felt the whisper in the back of her mind before she saw the ship she now called home. That whisper, while once the stuff of her very literal nightmares, now sent a wash of relief through Devon.
“You’re gonna have, like, two seconds to bo- ah!” Rylee’s voice crackled and died in her helmet as the Runaway came tearing round the communications and bridge tower, thrusters roaring as the pair of TIEs behind it showered the Mandalorian fighter with laser-fire.
As the ship flashed by, Devon sprinted along the hull of the destroyer, eyes locked on the nearest TIE fighter. The poor grav-boots and sensors of her suit weren’t built for quick movements, and it felt a little like running through tar even with the tiny thruster boosts, but Devon had the strength of the Force, and it wasn’t her first time working in such conditions.
The Runaway banked sharply to the right, the turn so abrupt both TIEs were forced to slow as they looped around, and to Devon’s satisfaction, it looked like they would come just close enough for a hair-brained idea. If it didn’t work, Maul might very well actually strangle her, but there was no time for hesitation. As the TIEs came screeching back towards her, Devon unclipped her lightsaber, flicked the red beam to life, and hurled it in a violent arc straight for the wing of the TIE nearest to her.
It was only thanks to the complete lack of atmospheric pressure that the saber was able to fly so quickly and so accurately, and the blade burned across the TIE’s wing exactly as Devon hoped, sending the enemy ship careening straight into the edge of the star destroyer in a cloud of fireworks. Likely distracted by the explosion, the second TIE fighter was taken down by a perfectly aimed shot from the Runaway, matching the first explosion in a wonderful burst of fire and sparks and little bits of Imperial scrap.
More TIEs would arrive quickly, but the Runaway was already circling back and twisting, the hatch opening just wide enough for one person to slip through. After catching her lightsaber again as it spun through empty space, Devon disengaged the grav-boots and kicked hard, hurtling straight into the waiting safety of the Runaway. The hatch closed, and before the entry compartment even had a chance to repressurize, she felt the ship lurch forward as it made the jump to hyperspace.
Devon was still sprawled on the floor of the ship’s entry when the decompression door unlocked and released, revealing a quick-moving Rylee. He was at her side in only a moment, hands around her arm to help Devon climb to her feet.
After glancing over his shoulder, he whispered a rushed, “Did you get it?”
Devon only had the chance to nod, briefly reaching up to press her gloved fingertips to the spot against her collarbone where the datastick was hidden. Before she could say anything else, Maul’s footsteps echoed through the ship, and he appeared in the doorway with a carefully neutral expression. Devon did her best not to wince.
“That was not the plan,” he said, arms crossing as his gaze bore down on Devon. The angle of the short corridor put him above her, exaggerated all the more by their height differences.
Where once Devon might have tried to explain herself to her master, she now simply focused on pulling her helmet off and unzipping the suit to step out of it, making sure to unclip the extra stolen blaster and return her saber to the hook on her belt as she did. “Plans change,” she said, with a casual shrug.
“And the Inquisitor?” Maul remained unimpressed, the edge of his voice betraying his mild frustration.
“Not on board.” Devon finally pulled her boot free of the space suit, kicking it a little as she stepped back from it, Rylee already moving to gather the thing back into his arms. It would probably join the rest of the stolen Imperial property that was slowly cluttering their cargo hold. “Just plenty of those…” She trailed off for a moment, but thankfully remembered the designation before Maul could correct her. “Those purgetroopers.”
At a tilt of his horns and the arch of his dark brow, Devon relented, at least a little.
“Fine,” she muttered, glancing away from Maul in a moment of weakness. “You were right. I wasn’t prepared to face them alone.” She didn’t mention she’d made it out with only a couple superficial blaster burns, or that she’d held her own against far worse enemies, because Maul cared very little for excuses.
Maul only hummed, low and a little threatening, but he didn’t press her for a further admission of defeat. Instead, he sighed, shaking his head a little as he began to turn away, then paused, catching Devon’s gaze. “Devon?”
She stiffened. “Yes, Master?”
“Do not forget the saber you carry is a shared gift. You would do well to remember that before so carelessly hurling it into empty space.” With those final words, he spun around and stalked away, leaving Devon to let out a very long, very weary sigh.
Rylee, who held his tongue the entire exchange, also let out a relieved sigh. “I thought the saber thing was kind of cool,” he mumbled.
She glanced at him with a raised brow.
“We, uh, had a pretty clear view of it,” he explained, shifting the space suit in his arms a little to keep a good grip. “Of you, I mean, when you tossed it.”
Well, at least Devon had pulled off the maneuver, reckless as it was. “Come on,” she said, instead of furthering the discussion, as she eyed the latest stolen suit. “Let’s go add this to our collection. And I got you a new blaster, since it was my fault your last one broke.”
“Broke is a really funny way to put it,” Rylee muttered, but he still fell into step beside her as they went deeper into the ship.
Technically, their ship was nicknamed The Runaway’s Revenge. The name didn’t appear on any manifold, and Maul was ever so reluctant to use it, especially since it was Rylee’s idea, but Devon kind of liked it. It was a little dramatic and a little childish, yes, there was something about giving a name to the ship that made it feel like home. Maybe it was a home Devon still found herself unable to fully relax in most of the time, and they never stayed in one place for long, and none of them actually used the word out loud, but it was the most accurate label for the old Mark 3 Kom’rk-class fighter.
They’d settled on the name after a long afternoon spent painting the ship. Apparently, Maul’s old Mandalorian fighter had been red, but when Devon asked if he’d like this ship to match, he’d merely waved a dismissive hand at her to make the decision herself.
Because paint wasn’t really a necessity, and while they probably had the credits to spare thanks to Maul’s extremely questionable financial acquisitions, Devon and Rylee chose the safest, cheapest option: a smooth, matte black and a muted grey that would help hide some of the carbon scoring. Combined with the polishing of a few panels here and there, she and Rylee managed to turn the beat-up ship into something that actually looked kind of decent. In fact, she’d even caught Maul looking as close to impressed as he ever did during one of their morning training sessions outdoors as he glanced over their finished work. He hadn’t commented, of course, and still didn’t really use the name, but still. Devon knew to accept the small win for what it was.
A name and a new paint job were superficial, yes, and at first, Devon hadn’t really fully comprehended how important they were. But then again, it had been years since she had a home; that wasn’t the case for Rylee. His idea of home was far different, and if painting and naming their ship helped him settle, then Devon was more than willing to do it.
After over three months of occupancy, the Runaway’s cargo hold was starting to look genuinely cluttered, even with Rylee’s attempts at tidying.
Still, there was enough room to slip by and open up one of the built-in storage compartments designed to hold full sets of Mandalorian armor. Now they held the Imperial uniforms picked up over the dozen or so infiltration missions they’d managed to pull off. It was Rylee’s idea to build up the collection, and while Maul originally dismissed it, especially since it wasn’t like Devon, a non-Human, could easily pass as an Imperial officer, he had yet to tell them to get rid of the gear.
Together, Devon and Rylee worked to cram the latest addition in between a nearly complete set of stormtrooper armor (missing one boot and the belt, both destroyed by Devon) and the stiff jacket she’d pulled off a drunken admiral the month prior when visiting a fuel station in the Bortele system, just to test if she could. The poor storage compartment door groaned a little as they forced it shut, but it did manage to lock. The new blaster Devon left tucked in one of the various storage crates, to be saved for later during one of their rare joint training sessions.
Their task complete, Rylee turned to Devon with an expectant look. He didn’t need to voice his question again, as Devon was already reaching into her vest to grab the datastick.
The movement caused the vest to stretch a little, and she winced as she felt the seam along her side give way. There were only so many times she could patch and stitch the thing together before she’d have to give in and find something new to wear, much like Rylee did. Sure, he’d kept his jacket and his boots, but the shirt and pants he’d left Janix in were lost to the ship’s incinerator after he’d torn through both in one of his very first training sessions. Now he spent most of his time in an old Mandalorian flightsuit they’d found in a forgotten storage compartment aboard the Runaway. His beloved jacket remained hidden away; he’d never drawn attention to it, but Devon knew it was safe somewhere in the bunk he now occupied alone.
Huddled together in the cargo hold, they both eyed the datastick in Devon’s hand. “I don’t think we should use the ship to read it,” she muttered, a little reluctant.
Thankfully, Rylee understood. “We’ll find a droid,” he said, nodding. “Or maybe a data-processing station? Maybe we’ll find one at the next fueling station, or if we go back to Corellia again…” Despite the agreement, Devon could see the way the uncertainty distressed Rylee, even if he did a pretty good job at hiding it. He was getting better at that, at not letting every single one of his emotions show, and while she knew it was a good skill for him to learn, Devon found herself hating it every time she watched Rylee force himself to school his features.
Closing her fingers around the datastick, Devon reached out to squeeze Rylee’s shoulder, then offered the stick to him. “You keep it, okay?”
“What?” The surprise beat out his distress, which was Devon’s goal.
She pushed it a little closer, insistent. “If this has your dad’s location on it, you should be the one to keep it safe.”
“But what if Maul-” Rylee tried to protest, but Devon wouldn’t have it.
“What if he what? Accuses you of hiding something? Rylee, Maul thinks everyone is hiding something.” She quirked a brow at him, trying for more lighthearted than she actually felt about the matter. “Besides, you don’t share a room with him.”
That convinced him, and Rylee took the datastick with a delicate pinch of his fingers. Much like their ship, his borrowed flightsuit had plenty of hidden places to store odds and ends, and he slipped the datastick into one of the interior pockets right below his heart; fitting, if a little too poetic for Devon’s taste.
“Do you really think it has his location?” Rylee whispered once the stick was safely hidden and the flightsuit zipped up again.
Devon wanted to say yes, but in reality, she couldn’t give a firm answer. “I hope so,” she whispered back. “I didn’t get a chance to review all the data, but that’s the most up to date log of all current Imperial prisoners sentenced for non-petty crimes in the last few months.”
Rylee’s brow was deeply furrowed, his mouth twisted, but still he nodded. “Thank you for getting it,” he said. “I know it’s not easy, hiding this stuff from Maul, and I know all these infiltrations are just part of your training with him, but still-”
“Hey,” Devon said, reaching to grab his shoulder again and lingering, this time. “Wreaking havoc on the Empire is kind of my job, lately. This is part of that. And you let me worry about Maul, okay?”
He nodded again, then shook himself. “We should probably head back out,” he said, eyes shifting to the door of the cargo hold as his face returned to neutrality. “Last time you didn’t immediately give him a full mission report, he was all…” he trailed off, wincing a little.
“Petty?” Devon suggested. “Irritable? Cranky?”
Rylee had to stifle his snicker. “I was going to say mean, but those work too.”
Devon smiled at his laughter, even if it was lackluster and a little nervous. “Come on,” she said, stepping away and jerking her head towards the door. As it slid open, she added, “I’ll go deal with Maul, you go find us some food. Also, maybe a bacta patch or two?”
With that, they each headed off to their respective destinations: Devon to the cockpit, and Rylee to the galley, a routine that was growing all the more familiar with each repetition.
Mission debriefs with Maul were… odd.
When he first sent her alone into a fringe Imperial base with the simple instruction to destroy all you can, all he’d asked when Devon returned a little worse for wear was if she felt satisfied with her work. She’d answered yes, and that was it. She had, after all, decimated the base to the best of her abilities. An escape ship had made it out with most of the posted troopers, but there were plenty of bodies left in Devon’s path to satisfy her master’s lust for destruction. And, now that she didn’t really deny it any more, Devon’s own desire for revenge did feel momentarily sated after the damage was done.
As the weeks turned into months, however, Maul would ask far more specific questions of her solo missions. Never did he ask what she did or how she did it; instead, he inquired how it felt. If she was pleased with the damage and the pain she caused. It unsettled Devon at first, and still did at times, but she’d grown more accustomed to her master’s inquiries after the months spent at his side.
And after, once Maul seemed satisfied, he would hold out a hand so Devon could unclip her saber and place it in his palm. He never kept it for long, a few seconds, maybe a minute at most, and would always return it to her. Sometimes, he offered her a “Well done, apprentice,” sometimes merely a dismissive “You may go.” When Devon came back with more severe wounds, or if she had to call for him to help her, or, on rare occasions, she failed to infiltrate their chosen target at all, Maul sent her away with nothing but a cold look and icy disappointment Devon felt for hours.
This time, after opening his eyes and releasing the saber back into her waiting hand, he said nothing for a very, very lengthy few moments. They were both cross-legged on the floor of the cockpit, and Devon knew better than to go without being dismissed. She did not fidget, but her body was far from relaxed as she awaited his verdict.
Finally, he blinked at her, slow and thoughtful. “Are you satisfied yet?”
She blinked right back, mouth a little dry. “Master?”
“Do not play at ignorance, Devon, it is beneath you,” he chided, shaking his head. “Are you satisfied with the damage you have caused, the lives you have razed? Do you believe your mission… complete?”
Before answering, Devon chose her words carefully. “As I have yet to face another Inquisitor, I know the revenge I seek is not yet complete.”
“Hmm.” His gaze did not leave her, and Devon did not shy away from it. “And if this Inquisitor did not evade you? If you succeeded in its defeat?”
Devon shook her head. “One Inquisitor isn’t enough.” And where once she might have worked to let go of the tension and ire bleeding into her voice, now she let each word burn. “I won’t be satisfied until they are all defeated.”
“Merely defeated?” Maul raised a careful brow, eyes narrowing as he pushed her.
“Dead,” she corrected, and in her lap, her fingertips dug into the silver hilt of her saber, the saber he gave her. “I want them all dead. Dead by my hand.”
Finally, Maul’s lips curled into that subtle, cruel smile, and he nodded. “Good. It is imperative you do not forget this is your driving force. Nothing is as important as your resolve and devotion to our cause,” he said, voice sweet and lilting, somehow only emphasized by the low, dark tone. “Tomorrow, we will return to Corellia, as there are some… loose ends I need to tie up. And I believe it is time we test just how desperately you desire your revenge.”
As much as Devon wanted to ask, she didn’t. There was a chance he might give her a partial answer, but his tone was clear; the answers would come later, and she must be patient. Patience was something Maul enjoyed testing, and Devon was a quick learner. So despite her own desire, she merely bowed her head in a nod. “I look forward to it.” The words fell easily from her tongue… perhaps too easily, she thought, distantly.
Seemingly done, Maul raised his hand, gesturing to the door. “Go,” he said, as if granting her some great boon. “I’m sure the Lawson boy will be waiting to patch you up.” Maul never referred to Rylee by name. He was the Lawson boy on a good day, or more frequently just the boy.
But Devon had no interest in sticking around any longer and gladly took the out. By the time she was back on her feet, the various minor injuries she’d acquired in this last scuffle were finally making themselves known.
As she shuffled down the short passage to the galley and main cabin, Devon let herself favor the ankle she must’ve overextended at some point in her antics, rubbing lightly where she’d slammed into a wall a little too harshly and bruised her shoulder, and lightly traced over a blaster burn she hadn’t even noticed along her cheek, stretching all the way past the edge of her headwrap and across the base of one lek.
The sight of Riley tinkering away at something in his lap, curled up on the built-in galley benches and hunched over one of the crates they’d turned into a makeshift table was a welcome sight indeed. He glanced up when he heard her footsteps, shaking his head when his overgrown bangs still hung in front of his eyes.
“You know,” Devon said, as she joined him at the bench and kicked her feet up onto the crate beside the tiny toolkit he had laid out. “I could give you another haircut, if you want.”
Immediately, Rylee blanched. The first, last, and only time Devon tried her hand at a Human haircut, they both learned quite quickly that while she was skilled at many things, and good with a lightsaber, blaster, or just about any other weapon she could get her hands on, a small pair of trimmers and a head of Human hair was not something Devon knew how to handle.
“It’s fine,” he muttered, with a small grimace. “I’ll just… deal with it, I guess.” Glancing up at the wrap around the base of Devon’s lekku and the sides of her hair, Rylee added, “You got a spare headband? Maybe that’ll do the trick.”
Devon’s hand raised to delicately run a fingertip along and under the edge of the wrap. The poor covering had been through it, just as her vest had. Perhaps being on the run with her old master and avoiding danger allowed for her clothes to maintain their longevity, but her new lifestyle? Well, there was a reason Rylee had switched to the flight suit and hidden his jacket away, and he wasn’t even facing a fraction of the fire she did.
“I’m pretty sure I need that spare,” she sighed, hand falling back to her lap, which only drew her eyes to the tear she’d felt in the side of her vest earlier. Sure enough, the seam she’d repaired only a few weeks ago was torn open again. “And not just the headband, either. Maybe I’ll find something on Corellia, if Maul lets us explore again.”
That made Rylee perk up. “So we’re definitely going back?”
She nodded. “Maul has… business. So I guess that means we’ll get a few days on solid ground.” What it meant was they would have plenty of opportunity to find some way to read the datastick, but she didn’t dare breathe a word of that, not with Maul just down the hall. Even if she wanted to discuss, to plan, Devon wouldn’t risk it. “What’re you working on?” she said instead, glancing down at whatever was in Rylee’s lap.
He lifted it a little for her to see. “I think it’s some kind of scanner,” he said, twisting the little device around. It wasn’t very large, only a little larger than his palm, and circular, its durasteel casing dented. Honestly, it looked more like scrap metal than anything. “It’s probably just junk,” Rylee sighed, flipping the thing around and setting it aside on the table. “But it’s something to do, at least.”
Devon wasn’t sure what to say, but she didn’t have to say anything. A moment later, Rylee offered her a small stack of sealed bacta patches.
“You need anything stronger?” he asked, when she took the supplies, moving her feet down from the crate to begin her work.
Against the floor, Devon’s ankle twinged. “Got any of those elasti-wraps left?”
To her relief, Rylee held aloft a small, white roll, setting it beside the patches on the crate.
The first few times Devon returned from some of the more dangerous attempts against the Imperial forces, Rylee kept offering to help patch her up. He even offered Maul help, who only looked at him like Rylee was a very noisy bug, and both Devon and her master refused the offered help. He offered again the first time Devon came back from a mission without Maul, and she once again denied him.
Now, Rylee didn’t offer help, but he also didn’t leave. He went back to twisting some kind of tiny screwdriver into the fastenings in the scrap-device’s casing, and Devon set to work bandaging herself up.
It was quiet, meditative work; somehow, even the brief sting of the patches before they settled into cooling relief grounded Devon. Since the poor vest was already literally coming apart at the seams, she shucked it off and folded it neatly, setting it on the bench beside her and leaving her undershirt loose and untucked from her belt.
Carefully, she pulled off the compression cuffs covering the edges of her sleeves, rolling the left sleeve up a bit to match the length of the right, wincing when she caught sight of a few bruises she hadn’t even felt. The purple smudges almost blended into the hues of her skin, the vibrant pink flushing where the soft skin of her inner forearm was ever so slightly swollen. But the bruising was mild, and she dismissed it in favor of the other injuries.
After applying most of the patches to the handful of weak spots she’d failed to defend from the purgetroopers’ blasters, Devon shimmied her weakened ankle out of its boot. The movement hurt far more than Devon expected, and Rylee’s head whipped over at her hiss of pain.
“Are you sure-” he stopped, then visibly forced himself to look away again.
“It’s just a light sprain,” Devon muttered, carefully rolling her sock and pants leg away so she could wrap the bandage roll around the offending joint. She couldn’t even say when the injury happened, and looking at it now, was a little impressed she’d barely noticed. The ankle bone that was usually so obvious now blended into the swollen skin, darker purples and even reds mottled across her ankle and down the bridge of her foot.
The stretchy white wrap didn’t do much for pain relief, but the compression would help, and it would at least remind her to be gentle with the limb until it healed enough not to worry about. So long as she elevated it while she slept, Devon would be fine.
Once the wrap was complete and her sock and pants leg returned to normal, if looking a little bulky, she sat back up just fast enough to catch Rylee’s wide-eyed stare where he’d obviously been watching her.
“I’m really okay,” she tried reassuring again, lowering her foot back down and ignoring the throb of her pulse as the limb fell below the level of her heart again after being propped up so high. “I know it looks bad, but that’s just surface stuff.”
Rylee didn’t look like he believed her one bit, but he did at least leave the matter alone. Instead, he hopped up and grabbed her one of the meal packs they kept in one of the many storage compartments, as well as an insta-heating hydropod, both of which he set down in front of Devon, pushing the wrappers from the bacta patches away.
This was his new thing, now: caretaking. It started out as a very obvious ploy to try convincing Maul he could be useful, back when both he and Devon weren’t certain how long Maul would let him stick around. At first, Rylee just kept his head down and did the most boring ship’s chores, like cleaning the entry, restocking the supply reserves from the hold, and going after the carbon scoring that always built up on the nose and the wingtips whenever they were landed somewhere safe enough for him to work on the exterior.
But as the weeks went on, Rylee’s self-imposed duties started to include little things for Devon, too. She didn’t really need it, but… it was nice. Working with Maul was the fastest Devon ever felt herself grow stronger, but it came at a price, and she paid that price in her own blood, and not in a metaphorical manner.
Rylee’s quiet yet persistent help filled the empty gap left where her old master once looked after Devon in a way Maul either didn’t care about or never even considered in the first place. Sure, he encouraged her to tend to her wounds, and he was quite clear when he expected her to rest, but it was a tactic. Devon was no use to him beaten and bruised, after all.
Often, she wondered what would have become of her, were it not for Rylee. If she simply turned her back and returned to Maul’s side, would Devon have been able to survive his training? Would the darkness that seeped into every corner of her life have already taken over?
But as she always did when encountering that train of thought, she dismissed it. There was no use in imagining a twisted what if. Rylee was at her side whenever he could be, and he seemed intent at staying there.
Devon would never truly give in to Maul, not with Rylee’s influence, which was a power she knew put the boy at unbelievable risk. And yet at the same time, it was Devon’s need to protect Rylee that pushed her to begin to lean on Maul in the first place.
The stalemate could not last forever. The time would eventually come when she would be forced to choose; Devon could only hope that when it did, she would be strong enough to make the right choice.