deercountry | (no subject)

People around Luke started talking, their voices muffled -- Luke hadn't been paying attention to what they were saying, his focus on his father. Something was... skipped, like a broken record, and suddenly the two of them were walking down the hall. Only now the world was tinted red, and Luke was visible -- they were seeing through Vader's eyes now, through the memories tied to the lightsaber.

Emotions swarmed through Vader like a storm in the resulting conversation: pleasure, at being referred to as "father," annoyance at being called "Anakin," pride as giant mechanical hands turned over a lightsaber that looked painfully similar to Kenobi's -- my son is so strong he came this far virtually on his own.

"Come with me."

Luke's words had ripped through Vader in that moment, and Maul would be able to feel the struggle, the urge to just listen. A memory flashed for a brief moment -- an old, flickering recording of Padmé on the birthing table that became her death bed, pleading with Obi-Wan. "There... is still good in him..." -- replaced quickly with seething anger -- he doesn't understand. My Master is too strong. The Dark Side is too strong.

"I feel the conflict within you, let go of your hate!"

Regret. The regret was so strong because he knew -- My Master will kill him -- and his son just kept clinging to hope.

"It is too late for me, son."

Another skip of a recording, and then... darkness and the Dark, still tinted red, still from Vader's eyes: a massive throne away from home, staring out at a star field with a green moon glowing softly in the darkness outside.

"Welcome, young Skywalker. I have been expecting you."

The emotions were tightly controlled, the focus entirely on a cloaked, black Shadow. A simple robe with an elaborate clasp, hateful, yellow eyes focused on the small figure beside him -- he is just meeting his gaze, not a bit of fear in him. My son... -- deep, wrinkled recesses giving way to a rotten toothed sneer at the young beacon of light that stood there like he was the one in control of the situation, not the one to be tested.

This was the most insight Maul had ever had into Anakin Skywalker. They had never gotten along since Skywalker had arrived in Deerington and things had just gotten worse in Trench for them. This showed a lot more going on in Skywalker's head than Maul ever would have wanted. But it was interesting. For all he'd fallen, Maul observed there was one similarity he and this new Sith Lord had in common: their capacity for love. He clearly loved and cared about Luke even if that wasn't enough to break the Dark Side's hold on him.

There was a difference there. Darth Vader felt a conflict between the pull the Dark Side had on him and the feelings he held for Luke. Maul never felt like he had to choose between one or the other. Granted, in his own world this had been because those he loved were on the Dark Side as well. Here, he'd still managed to find a way to care about people and still stay in the darkness as well. He wondered if the conflict from Vader came mostly from the fact that Luke was such a beacon of light. It would have been hard to reconcile those two differences, being on the Dark while his son was firmly on the Light.

When the memory skipped forward again, there was some emotion and thoughts that bled over from Maul when he saw Palpatine. First off just a cry full of fright. 'Master! Even in a memory, the sight of Darth Sidious could make Maul want to flinch away and hide, the stark terror of his childhood mixing in with the more complicated fear as an adult. Then there was a whole other cascade of thoughts. '--What happened to him? He'd never looked like that before. The Dark Side finally caught up with him and made his insides match his outside--'

But then the thoughts were cut off as he saw how Luke managed to remain unflinching and calm before the sight of the old monster. Truly, the boy had courage beyond measure, given the sheer vile, evil nature that radiated off his master.

A soft reassurance reached out to Maul the moment emotions started to bleed, and Luke's light met his fear with gentle calm, just as the memory Luke verbally sparred with the Emperor, refusing that Palpatine would be completing his training, but it wasn't until the Emperor had taken Luke's lightsaber from Vader's hands that his father seemed to take real notice of what was going on in Luke's head.

"You're wrong. Soon I'll be dead, and you with me."

You're not going to die here, son; have you gone mad? Why are you resisting? was running through Vader's head, as if the answer wasn't obvious, as if he didn't already know said answer. But while Vader was responding in disbelief, the Emperor wasn't taking Luke seriously, taunting him.

"Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Rebel fleet," his master sneered, and Vader could feel he had his son's attention without even looking. "Yes... I assure you, we are quite safe from your Rebel friends here."

And his son -- stupid, brave, impossible boy -- did the one thing that no one had dared to do to his master in over twenty years: call him out.

"Your overconfidence is your weakness."

The red tinted gaze snapped immediately to the young man, a mix of admiration and pride and fear and annoyance and genuine worry just barely kept in check, watching as Luke didn't even flinch when Palpatine shot back -- "Your faith in your friends is yours." -- with as much venom dripping from his words as he could summon, the Dark lashing out in retaliation, and -- stupid and brave -- Luke didn't flinch as he continued to resist his master. But there was a crack there, a barest hint of just how hard this was on him.

"It is pointless to resist, my son," Vader reminded him, almost sounding like he was doing him a kindness with the verbal nudge. He watched as Luke's shoulders sagged slightly, suddenly looking small and fragile, and an unpleasant lurch made itself present in Vader's thoughts, something he quickly shoved away.

The images skipped again, though it seemed mostly because Vader's focus was solely on Luke, watching him as the Emperor taunted him with the view from the throne, letting him watch as ships -- clearly belonging to the Rebellion -- were being cornered not only by Star Destroyers, but by the fully functional battle station they were in. Anger and helplessness were welling up in Luke, the calm he had shown before cracking even more, until it suddenly exploded and --

They were fighting.

Luke had Vader's entire focus as he intercepted the lightsaber that first went swinging toward his master and then straight for him. The pride was there as they fought, but also concern... and then fear as the image of the fight skipped over to Luke fighting like he was possessed, like he was almost feral as he struck out at Vader again and again and -- he may actually kill me. My son may actually kill me and not care...

And then a sharp burst of electronic pain as Vader's dominant hand was cut off, as a pulsing green blade was at his throat, breath wheezing as he found himself holding up a hand, not realizing until that moment just how much he didn't want his son to be the one responsible for his death.

"Good," the Dark hissed from the throne, and the sneering voice, the insistence that he kill him and take his place. He had seen this moment before in visions, and it always ended with his vision fading, the last thing he saw was his son presenting himself on one knee to his new master--

...but instead there was a loud thud as his son threw away his lightsaber.

"Never. I'll never turn to the Dark Side. You've failed, Your Highness; I am a Jedi, like my father before me."

Like my father before me. The words echoed in Vader's head, emotion carving through the black shell of his armor. He didn't deserve to have something like that said of him, to have the faith that his son held in him... and yet...

Edited 2022-06-03 01:54 (UTC)

Maul watched Luke defy the Emperor. The courage of his friend was astounding to watch. Most everyone held a healthy fear for the Sith Lord but Luke seemed t have none at all. Stupid, brave boy, just as his father thought he was. Maul waited to see just what would happen next.

Watching Luke fight his father, Maul saw a different side to the young Jedi. He had a temper on him that reminded Maul very distinctly of Anakin's and he could see exactly where Luke had gotten it from. There was darkness there, the same that had run through Anakin, but Maul saw that Luke was not just his father's son when he hesitated and did what Anakin never could: he refused to give into the darkness, turned his back on it and instead embraced the light. It was impressive to say the least for Maul to watch. There was much there that reminded Maul far more of Obi-Wan, that Jedi way of being able not to fall into the temptation of darkness even when it would have been the easiest path.

Maul saw a look on Palpatine's face he hadn't seen for a very, very long time when Luke refused the Dark Side of the Force. It was the expression he wore when things had not gone to plan, when an outcome occurred he had neither expected or wanted. So brilliant a chessmaster was he that it produced great anger and frustration in the Sith Lord when things didn't go his way. Much as he never would have admitted it, he was just as likely to throw a temper tantrum as his adoptive son was when this happened and his were just as deadly as Maul's were. It wasn't often but it had happened before and a chill ran through Maul upon hearing what the Emperor said next.

"So be it.....Jedi." Maul could understand both what his master was and wasn't saying. He was acknowledging Luke as a Jedi, and really, with no other Jedi now around to complete the ceremony it really took the order's oldest foe to acknowledge when a person had completed enough trials to become one. Luke refused to give into the darkness and so he had earned the title. In a strange way, it was something approaching a compliment.

Unfortunately, Maul knew what that also meant, especially with that look on Palpatine's face. If he bestowed the title of Jedi on Luke, that meant he was no longer looking to turn the young man into his next apprentice. Instead, it meant that Luke was now an enemy and there was only one way Palpatine would deal with one of the last Jedi in the galaxy. He was going to kill him, and knowing that Palpatine was upset with this unforeseen outcome, he wasn't going to make it a quick death either.

Maul mentally flinched back as soon as the first bolts of Force Lightning struck Luke, his PTSD coming to the front of his mind as he flashed back to one of the many times this had happened to him as a child. He'd had this done to him countless times in his youth and knew the ins and outs of the power well enough to know that Palpatine wasn't giving Luke a full voltage. He fully intended to torture the Jedi before he ultimately killed him. This didn't surprise Maul but it made him worried as to what the next few minutes were going to hold for Skywalker.

Edited 2022-07-05 08:51 (UTC)

To his credit, Luke tried to keep back the feeling of the torture, but his own trauma got the better of him before very long. The memory of the pain, watching himself writhe on the floor, the glare of the lightning cutting through the red glare of his father's mask, made him tremble, drawing a faint whimper from him. He wasn't sure if he begged for his father to help him in the memory or in real life; he couldn't tell over the feel of the lightning coursing through him, biting into his skin and--

I can't...

His father's thoughts cut through the pain, reminding him that he wasn't actually there, wasn't actually experiencing this again.

My son... I'm watching my son die... just like...

Vader paused, his view turning to the Emperor as he hissed those words that Luke could just barely remember hearing over the ringing in his ears and the pain in his body.

"And now, young Skywalker... you will die."

His scream of pain echoed in his father's ears, and every scream brought actual pain from his father, like he was being ripped apart, piece by piece, until all that was Vader was just fragments on the floor, leaving only who he really, truly was behind.

Not again. Not my family. Never again...!

It was the first, conscious thought Anakin had in over two decades, and the light burned in his chest, warm and bright, as he turned to the Emperor and grabbed him, lifting him up over his head despite the fact he was missing a hand. The Emperor screamed, lightning splattering everywhere, hitting Anakin as he staggered toward the edge of the platform, nearly dropping him as blast after blast of lightning caused a new error to come up in the mask's view. Anakin ignored it, focused on getting one foot in front of the other, getting to the railing, and...

With a mighty heave, he tossed the Emperor over the edge, before collapsing against the railing, watching as his former master fell down, down into the reactor core, sparking lightning the whole time, until an explosion of Darkness suddenly ripped through the whole room, buffeting Anakin before sucking back down into the core, leaving everything deathly quiet...

...save for the painful, wheezing noises coming from his respirator. That... that was it; for a moment, Anakin debated following after his master, dying on his own terms, before he felt a trembling hand on what little of his arm was left. He was pulled away from the railing in the next moment, his son coming into view, in pain, gasping for breath, but... still alive. His son was still alive.

His son would live.

Anakin cleared out the errors in his mask -- it didn't matter now, not right now. He just... wanted to see his son.

Luke let out a shuddering breath as he finally pulled the both of them out of the memory, letting his father's lightsaber drop into his lap. It took him a moment to bring himself back to the present, to remember where he was and why he was there, before he finally looked up at Maul, a shaky smile coming to his face.

"Y-you okay?"

"That was.....a lot." Between seeing the torture of Luke at the Emperor's hands (the Force Lightning still feeling a ghostly echo over his own skin), Palpatine's rather satisfying death, and the redemption of Anakin Skywalker, Maul wasn't sure how to feel about it all. He'd need to take time to absorb and take it all in.

"This requires tea," Maul said, getting up and going back into the house. He set up the kettle and began looking through the boxes of tea to see which one he should pick. He was unusually quiet as he thought of everything that he had seen. His hands kept occasionally brushing over his skin as if he thought the painful prickles of lightning would start up at any moment. He glanced at Luke, wondering what his skin must have looked like after such an experience.

One thing stuck out in his mind and that was the ending where Anakin had saved his son. "I never would have believed he was capable of that much goodness," Maul said. But he wasn't surprised. Maul's best moments have often come defending those he loved. "Love can make one fall but it can also redeem even those that are the worst souls in the galaxy." Small wonder Luke was able to see the good in Maul and able to tolerate his mercurial moods. He'd been able to redeem Darth Vader, so another Sith Lord that was already walking the road to become a better person was bound to be a piece of cake after that.

Luke stood up wordlessly to follow Maul back into the house, pausing only to slip his father's lightsaber back into its hiding place. As he followed, he absently rubbed at his arms when he thought Maul wasn't looking -- the memory of the torture he had endured before he had been saved crawling along his skin like the lightning had.

He slipped into a chair as Maul spoke, managing a weak smile.

"I... think the difference is to love selflessly," he said softly after a moment. "I love my father very much... but I knew going there that I had the chance of dying myself... or losing him. I was prepared for either outcome, to let go."

He paused, before shrugging sheepishly, absently picking at the sleeve covering his left arm.

"...I guess that sounds kind of terrible and reckless though."

"No, I understand. That is what I've always thought a Jedi should be. But things like politics, corruption, and the war that they became involved with in my time is what caused the ending of the Order as I knew it to be. The only one I've ever known who truly seems to embody their principles as they should be is Obi-Wan."

It was hard for Maul to admit even now but he did really see Obi-Wan as being the ideal Jedi. It would take someone who loved selflessly but could still let go of that love to manage to put up with Maul and not hate him with the burning of a thousand suns, even after he'd killed two of the people in Obi-Wan's life he'd cared about the most.

Maul set down a few different boxes of tea in front of Luke. "Pick one out."

Luke smiled faintly at that. "I guess it's a good thing he trained me first, even if it was only for a few hours."

He didn't... really consider how odd that probably sounded, having only a few hours of Jedi training. Instead, he was more busy with the teas that Maul set out, trying to decide which would be close to one that he liked.

"A few hours?" Maul shook his head, his tone somewhere between amazement and exasperation. Once again, he'd thought he should have just stayed on Tatooine in his future and trained the boy himself. It would have been just as simple as the 'sit around and wait' attitude Obi-Wan had apparently adopted.

"You must be some sort of prodigy to be as good as you are. But I'm not surprised." Maul had long suspected Luke was the Chosen One of legend and knew Obi-Wan thought so as well, at least at the point in time where Maul had died in his arms on Tatooine. It made a lot more sense in his eyes than the idea that it was Anakin, given Luke's propensity for being able to do things like turn Dark Siders back towards the Light.

Luke shrugged slightly, a bit of a pink coming to his face as he poked at an invisible stain on the table.

"I... don't know about prodigy," he confessed. "I just... had to learn everything I could as fast as possible, so..."

He shrugged slightly, shifting his eyes up to see if Maul believed him or not, before he took a deep breath, and...

"If I had to guess, I think I had a week of formal instruction," he added, before frowning slightly. "Maybe less...? Time felt... different on Dagobah."

Maul gaped at Luke in amazement. A week? This was both amazing and terrible to hear. "There is perhaps a sort of wisdom in that type of training, paring down all the dogma and pointless rules so that all that is left is what is essential for becoming a Jedi." Honestly, he wondered if the Sith might not benefit from the same sort of way, leaving all that had become simply stodgy old rituals behind.

He flicked his fingers, starting up the kettle on the stove without ever touching it. "But at the same time a great deal of knowledge has been lost thanks to the lack of proper teaching. I am going to see that is corrected." Considering the lack of teachers in Luke's life, a Sith Lord well-versed in the Force wasn't the worst one he could have been learning under.

Luke let out a breath, shaking his head. At least Maul believed him; he didn't want to tell Obi-Wan, as he'd probably take it as a failing on his part. If he told his father... well, there was a range of reactions there, and there was no telling what one he would get.

"I guess so," he replied, not fully grasping what Maul was saying. "I've tried learning myself, finding what scattered lore I can find, but it--"

He cut himself off as it finally sunk in, and he paused a moment, staring up at Maul like he grew a second head. It was a moment before a lopsided grin came to his face, and he leaned forward a little on the table, folding his arms against it.

"I thought we were just going to keep this to sparring?"

Maul got up and went over to the kettle, picking two mugs out of the squeaky cabinet that still occasionally swung open on its own no matter how many times he'd tried to fix it. He filled them with water and set the tea bags into them.

"We were," Maul said, walking back over to Luke and. "Until you revealed you've had about as much training as my vornskr has at learning the ways of the Force. That is something I simply cannot let continue." Maul had always had a thirst for knowledge and the idea that Luke hadn't had access to all that just didn't sit right with him.

He sipped his tea and winced for a moment realizing how hot it still was. "So I am going to teach you what I know."

Luke hesitated, part of him wanting to object, wanting to remind Maul that they followed opposite beliefs when it came to the Force. He really didn't have any business being taught by someone that was Dark, not to mention someone trained by the Emperor -- whether he was finding his own path through the Darkness or not. His mouth opened and closed for a moment, trying to find something to say, only to end up leaning forward, interested in spite of himself. Maul... he wasn't sure why, but he trusted Maul to keep to the basics, to parts of the Force that didn't waver to either side.

And even if he did have a few lessons about the Dark Side, would it really be bad to learn something of it? To know what to avoid in the future?

"When do we start?" he ended up asking.

Maul knew it was an odd offer, teaching someone so firmly set on the path of the Light when he himself clung so hard to the Dark and his identity as a Sith Lord. But Luke was different than most Jedi Maul had come across. They were close-minded and unwilling to learn from someone they saw as evil. But Luke wasn't like that. He saw Maul as his own person, not just being a Sith. He'd been kind to Maul from the very beginning and so his offer to teach him was genuine.

"Now," Maul said firmly. "Unless you have some other pressing business to attend to."

Again, Luke hesitated, but he only considered how disastrous all this could go if anyone found out about it for a moment this time. He was leaning forward in the next moment, resting his arms on the table, an attentive look on his face.

"Not at all," he said, before adding with a bit of a lopsided smile, "You have my full attention, Master Maul."

Maul grinned them, a rare honestly happy one that didn't have any malice or anger in it. He hadn't been sure the young Jedi would take him up on his offer but he was glad Luke had. So much knowledge had been lost and Maul found it a comforting thought to know some of it would continue to live on. Even if it was in someone on the Light Side......well, he'd been saying for some time that Sidious had, as in his usual hypocritical way, stagnated the Sith just as he'd stated had happened to the Jedi. It was time for a new way.

Maul leaned forward a bit as well, lacing his clawed hands together. "Alright. I shall start with as far back as recorded history goes with the two orders..."