Yuuzhan

Dark Lady

Rating:        NC-17  There are adult sexual situations in this story, and violence.
Disclaimer: Maul, the Yuuzhan Vong, and the Star Wars universe belong to George Lucas.  This story is intended to honour the character and person of Darth Maul, the enigmatic Sith Warrior who stole our hearts with his beauty, and intrigued our minds with his power.  Thus we honour Lucas also, when we take a walk with Maul, on the dark side. 
Feedback:  Please send feedback to Dark Lady@blueyonder.co.uk
Initial posting: On dmeb2.
Acknowledgement: This is dedicated to MaulMaus. She has unstintingly given her time and patience, to make this story a much better one than it would otherwise be. I bow to her wisdom and imagination. Thankyou.

Yuuzhan.

 A short synopsis...

For some time, the thought of how Maul would regard the Yuuzhan Vong, that race of warriors who come from another galaxy, has intrigued me.  As soldiers they are without peer, except for Maul.  Their life is filled with pain, which they worship.  They regard all pain as something to be welcomed on the road to the next life, yet they have honour, and strict codes of behaviour, albeit strange to our sensibilities. 

They cannot be seen in the Force.  Is this because the are outside the Force, and therefore not living, not sentient? (For the Force is life itself, according to Jedi teaching.)  Or is it because they are out of range of the perceptions of Force trained adepts?  Such fine points of philosophy might determine how the Force sensitive will treat with the Yuuzhan, whether as animals or conscious beings. 

This series of novels is quite different to any other series, as mainstream science fiction authors create and develop story after story in the manner of a relay, each author picking up the tale from that which went before.  Some of the stories are quite horrific, the level of violence both described and intimated can be quite alarming. The ideas raised however, are most intriguing.

As far as Maul is concerned, the Yuuzhan Vong sent scouting parties into the galaxy well before the events which took place in Episode 1, and were not detected at all by the conventional Republican forces of law and order, or, indeed, the intelligence services. 

To battle and conquer the Yuuzhan Vong warriors he met by chance, Maul needed to heighten his physical senses to an unprecedented degree, for he could not 'see' them in the Force.  This, however, might have unexpected benefits in other areas of his life.

And now for the story...

A deserted world of plenty.  A planet empty of sentience, thought, and intelligence, but rich in life.  No intellect or mind to cause ripples of awareness in the Force, no sentience evident within the verdant forests, or in the lush green plains of the tundra  The seas were havens only for cold-blooded creatures of a vicious nature, hunters, predators, killing machines scouring the oceans and plains for prey.  The planet teemed with life, and when he searched the Force for traces of life that knew of its own existence, Maul found only another kind of richness beyond his imaginings, a cacophony of perception and sensitivity, violence, and mindless lust for procreation and death.  The abundance of life was such that he must use his talent carefully, lest the sentience for which he was searching was drowned by the fecundity over which he swept.

For a while, Maul allowed his senses to become submerged in the riot of animal awareness emanating from the life that seethed beneath his ship.  Vicariously, he enjoyed the vicious snap of jaws, the sinking of sharp fangs into soft struggling flesh, the tearing of gristle and tendon, and the grinding of hot flesh-spattered bone.  A planet so abundant in life-forms was rare, and setting the ship on auto-pilot, he used the Force for his amusement and invaded the minds of the animals beneath him - if indeed they could be called 'minds' for they were easily controlled, such was their primitive state of evolution.

He sent a serpent snaking through the waters hunting fish-like creatures, and felt the water stream over his skin in an endlessly pleasurable sensation.  For an instant in time, he twisted and turned after scaly prey, knowing each and every movement and shift in direction was accomplished with an economical grace and power that was astounding in its perfection.  The serpent caught a mouthful of fish and Maul felt the warm crunch of scale and bone, the taste of salt and copper, and the reflexive wriggling of frantic bodies in 'his' gullet as 'he' swallowed and gulped.  Then sated with sensation, he turned his mind back to his Master's business again.

Bringing the Infiltrator about in a tight turn, Maul set course for the southern ice-cap, and mapped the lands en-route, taking the ship screaming over flat plains and howling down once-quiet valleys.  Over the seas, he took control and dropped the ship just a few feet above the surface of the waves, sending great plumes of spray into the air behind him as he ploughed the waters with ion-drive and steel.  The ship scanned, recorded, and analysed, as he circumnavigated the planet, looking for the rare crystals and metals Sidious desired to use for cloaking devices.

He orbited the planet, pole to pole, ice-cap to ice-cap, and at the edge of a great forest, found a magnetic anomaly that registered on the scanner he had purchased from Raith Sienar only days before.  He turned the ship to investigate and found a metal outcropping, and sensing no intelligence in the Force, landed the ship, knowing he would be unobserved by any sentient beings.

*****

Or so he thought.

Scouting the local terrain prior to taking samples of the ore, Maul discovered a small settlement of three huts, which was part-concealed in a sheltered clearing, and overshadowed by tall trees.  It appeared to him that the huts had been almost hidden, and again, perhaps not.  The group of dwellings had not been strategically placed, so he decided to observe, from a distance, and concealed himself in tall grasses on a rise overlooking the settlement.  The bird-like creatures fell silent as he stealthily approached the group of dwellings, then they gradually picked up the chatter again as he lay on the ground, motionless, watching through electro-binoculars.

Maul remained still for some hours, studying and observing, for there appeared to be but two inhabitants moving about the small settlement.  He searched in the Force and could not find life or purpose in them, in that sense they were invisible to him.  The Force revealed nothing, and amidst the riot of life which was revealed on the planet, they were a space, a lifeless vacuum.  He wondered about this and was concerned, for if ever they became enemies and there was a need to do battle, then he must rely on his native wit and consummate skill with the lightsabre.  Not being able to foretell the intentions and movements of his opponents would be like fighting with one hand tied behind him  - they would be three-dimensional beings, existing in space but not in time, a nullity in the continuum of sentience that spanned the Force.

He watched them proceed about their daily lives and finding their activities mundane and of no threat to himself, called a probe droid, and programmed it to conceal itself in the branches of a tree and stand watch.  He also set a silent alarm, which would alert him via his wrist link, if the unknown aliens ventured out of a large circle centred about the huts.  Content that images of the settlement would be transmitted back to the Infiltrator, where he would later analyse them for behaviour patterns, Maul left the aliens to their own devices, and went to search for crystals.

But, ever careful,  he cloaked the ship.

*****

Over time, the activities of the aliens proved to be quite ordinary and of no interest.  The two, most likely  males dressed in short kilts and high boots, seemed interested only in sparring with each other, or hunting for the local game, which they did daily.  Some of the game they caught was small and looked unappetising, and this they deposited live, but caged in wicker baskets, just inside the larger hut.  They also gathered large quantities of greenstuffs and herbs, which they also placed inside the hut, far too much for the two people living there.

Their few clothes were simple, consisting of the short kilt, made of some sort of coarse fabric coloured gray-blue, and a long cloak, which was plain, and undecorated.  The few words they uttered were guttural and coarse-sounding, and he did not know the tongue they spoke.  What few weapons he could see were clumsy and primitive, made of something like wood and hide, perhaps bone - weapons which were no match for a lightsabre.  Maul relaxed a little, and even though they were invisible to him in the Force, he largely dismissed them from his thoughts.

After six days had passed, Maul studied the latest holo-vid of the aliens activities, running the holo at speed to scan their activities during the previous day.  And then - something strange.  He reversed the imaging and replayed the holo-vid.

The two warriors - if that is what they were - ventured out of the hut, at dawn, walking one behind the other.  One carried a covered bowl of some kind, and his manner was reverent.  The warrior walking behind him looked almost ecstatic, as though in some kind of religious trance.

The hidden camera tracked and followed the two to the edge of the clearing, where the warriors sat cross-legged, one opposite the other.  The warrior who had borne the bowl placed it reverently between them and for a time, they shut their eyes, and were still, as if in meditation.  There followed a short time of chanting, full of discordant notes, until both flung their arms to the heavens with a great shout.

After the ritual shout, the second warrior took from the bowl a small hammer-like object, with which he carefully proceeded to smash the cheek bones on one side of his companion's face.

Ritual disfigurement then.  This was the custom of many primitive races throughout the galaxy, that Maul knew, but this was more grotesque than most.  Maul leaned forward and watched with interest, as the second warrior rearranged the broken bones in such a manner that the healing process would reduce a once proud and savage countenance from something that was beautiful, to a disfigured and asymmetrical parody of itself.

The pain must have been immense, and Maul nodded to himself in approval.  Such fortitude is to be admired! he thought. His own tattoos had been acquired at the expense of much pain, but had fortified his own resolve and stamina in the process -  he was now able to withstand much, and disregard it altogether if necessary.  A commonality with the culture of the Sith - he wondered what else they had in common, perhaps they were a force to be reckoned with.

The breaking was clean and quick, but as the broken bones were manipulated, the disfigured warrior fell forward to his knees, in obvious great pain.  He remained there, taking in great gulps of air, eyes tight shut, chest heaving, and shoulders shaking.  The comrade sat cross legged in silence, waiting.

After some time, the kneeling warrior looked up to his comrade, and nodded, spoke a few words in their guttural tongue, and they both rose.  The two walked slowly back to the camp, the disfigured warrior leading, although staggering a little from time to time.

In the shadows of the doorway of the larger hut waited a figure, differently dressed in a rough green tunic which covered from neck to knees.  The figure was shapely in the manner of humanoid females; there was something which writhed slowly upon the head, and the figure twisted one hand in the other as it waited.  Maul decided it was most likely female, for it was small and lightly built.

The disfigured warrior stood smiling and swaying some way in front of her, partly obscuring her from the hidden camera.  She came out to meet him, and raised her hand to his face.  Some words passed between them, and the warrior stepped back, with a look of anger mixed with surprise evident on his face.  She stepped forward and touched his face with a tender manner, and shook her head.  Then she turned, and went back into the hut.  The warrior made to follow, but stopped at the doorway, and did not enter.  With his hand on the lintel, he peered in and called, in a low and urgent voice, but there was no answer and he turned away.

A third member of the settlement.  Maul wondered what went on in the larger hut and resolved to investigate on the following day, for there may be more of them.  He reset the probe droids to even finer resolution and retired.

*****

The day dawned, and in the cool early morning light, the two warriors went about their hunting, taking with them woven baskets and assorted carriers slung onto a pole which they carried between them.  They jogged out of the settlement, weapons in hand, and disappeared noisily into the trees.

 Maul dressed, with some eagerness, in combat gear.  His journeys through space were tedious.  Even though action probably was not desirable at this point, 'Action', he reminded himself, 'will restore my equilibrium.'  He took no extra armament.  The warriors had simple and primitive weapons.  Moreover, there was only a female in camp, so if there was any confrontation,  he expected little in the way of resistance.  He did, however, make a small concession to caution by putting on soft boots to muffle his footfall, and thin leather gloves to protect his slender hands, then he clipped his lightsabre to his belt and jogged to the settlement, making little or no sound as he did so.

On the same small rise from where he had observed before, he fell to the ground on his belly, and watched through electro-binoculars.  Seeing no-one was about, he crawled round the edge of the encampment through the long grasses, until the back of the hut was in front of him, concealed himself, and waited.

The female came into view, as she came out of the hut, and walked with a brisk step to the edge of the clearing to his left, carrying a length of rough cloth in her hand.  There was a stream not far away, and if she was going to bathe, she may well be some time.  Maul took the opportunity and quickly worked his way around the hut, slipped silently into the doorway, and stationed himself behind the rough mud wall.  He checked the clearing before moving into the dwelling.  She did not return, so conscious of the need for haste, he pulled the hanging over the door aperture, and lit his sabre to illuminate the dark interior.

The hut was set up as if it were a laboratory.  There were spotless benches made of a hard, warm material, and neat racks of things which looked like tools.  These tools, if they were such, appeared to be made of wood, and bone, nothing was made of metal.  There were boards of various sizes, with pegs inserted into slots, and lengths of string-like fibre.  There were jars of thin wormlike things which writhed  sinuously around one another, and there were different sizes of worms in different jars.  There were more jars, holding small cowering animals, their bodies strangely distorted and mis-shaped.  Curious, Maul removed his gloves, stuffed them into his belt, and peering into one such jar, casually tapped it with a nail, for it looked like glass.  The jar collapsed into a disc, opened, and the contents slithered off the bench to the floor, and disappeared.  Annoyed that this may be discovered, and thus reveal the presence of a stranger in their midst, he used the Force and gestured at the disc, but it did not respond to his command and resume the shape of a jar.  He left it, hoping the aliens would think it had happened by accident.

One bench was covered with several of the various shaped boards, each with a live animal staked out upon it.  There were plaintive mewlings and harsh pantings as the creatures struggled weakly against their bonds, but they were barely recognisable as animals.  They were also distorted and misshaped, and he was reminded of the warriors face, and the breaking of it.

Disgust prevailed for these sad things were hardly suitable adversaries for a warrior.  Maul sniffed in derision at the pitiful tools used by these primitives, and sneered at the poverty stricken surroundings in which they worked.  What they hoped to accomplish he could only wonder at!  He made a cursory inspection of the remainder of the chamber, finding another laboratory, spartan quarters with a bed, and what appeared to be a shrine dedicated to a grotesquely female form with a crown of snakes.

There was nothing here for him, there was no evidence of any activity which concerned him, although he wondered how they got here.  They almost certainly came from off-world.  A craft of some sort must therefore be hidden nearby, but where?  His own work here was nearly finished.  If possible he would find the purpose of their presence here, but he would not let it detain him, for his Master was impatient for his report on the matter of the crystals.

Maul switched off the sabre, put on his gloves, and moved cautiously toward the entrance of the hut and looked out of the doorway.  As before, there was no-one around, so he made his way round the hut, staying close to the rough brown wall, and once at the back of it, ran quickly across the rough grass to the edge of the clearing and under the outer ring of trees.

Too late, he saw the pair of warriors standing under the trees in the long grass, expressions of surprise on their faces.  As one, they immediately dropped their cages and baskets, and reached for the weapons slung at their hips.  The female was behind them, and she pointed at Maul and shouted, just as Maul reached into the Force and jumped into the lower branches of the nearest tree.  Two axe-like weapons crashed into the bark of the trunk beside his head, and he ducked, then jumped further up onto the next ring of branches.  He watched with no little concern, as the embedded weapons shook, and worked their way out of the bark, and fell to the ground to be retrieved by the warriors.  Sentient weapons or were they being manipulated by a force of some kind?

'Offence is the best form of defence,' he thought, and did not stay to find out, but reached for his sabre and dropped to the ground, to confront his opponents.

*****

Maul fired up the sabre and crouched, facing the two warriors, who had the axes back in their hands and something else in the other.  The something else looked like a whip, which was coiled around the fingers.  He could see a large and vicious looking barb just held in the hand, and pointing in his direction.  Action, at last!  He gave them an evil grin, looked from one to the other, and sprang to the attack, holding the lightsabre level across his chest.  Using a Force assisted jump, he planted a foot in the chest of each warrior.  As one, they rolled backward, absorbing the blow, and somersaulted to face him again.

Battle thus commenced, Maul countered each attack, twisting and turning to evade the axes and whips, while making many effective thrusts and lunges of his own.  The sharp axes seemed alive, and the heads extended from the hand at will, to cut and slash at his tunic and flesh.  The whips sang, and the hooks embedded themselves in his clothes, and when he grasped the tail of a whip with his hand to pull a warrior closer to him for a death blow, the leather gloves ripped, and he felt stinging barbs running backward along it's length.  They tore the flesh of his hand and made cruel cuts which made him let go.

Although he dealt many hard blows, and caused many burns, the warriors had no presence in the Force, they were neutral, nothing, a void.  They existed in space but not in time, and he could not judge their responses with his customary  accuracy, or divine their intentions.  To counter this, he expanded all his physical senses and looked for flickerings of muscle to indicate intent; he acutely observed the direction of their gaze; listened to the sounds they made as they fell behind or to the side of him, to judge whether he had wounded or hurt.  They had bony spurs on their elbows and knuckles, one of which caught his neck as a warrior leapt sideways to escape the slash of his sabre.

He could smell them easily, for they had an aroma of clean fresh soil that was newly turned, as if spring had arrived.  As the sheen of sweat gathered on their skins as they battled, he noticed that the smell changed subtly, to take on an astringent note.  Maul hoped this was the smell of fear for he was severely taxed, and he was losing blood from his many wounds.  The barbs from the whips were most effective, dancing in the air and striking with deadly and effective accuracy, cutting through fabric and ripping skin as they left his flesh.

Because of his training, the loss of blood heightened his mind and his senses, until he also saw that there was a rhythm to this battle, and moreover, that he was following this rhythm in an almost hypnotic fashion.  He saw that the warriors tried to play with him as if he were a mouse, to make him turn first one way, then the other, to tire him.  The strokes of the axes and lash of the whip made a cruel song, and Maul realised that the pattern must change, or he would die.

He decided to employ a ruse, and manoeuvred himself until he was between the two of them, and feinted a stumble, a moments inattention or tiredness, as if he were totally spent.  The opponent in front of him bared his teeth and the light of victory glinted in his eyes as he relaxed a little and raised the axe to strike the final blow.

Maul switched off one end of the sabre as he brought the active blade high towards the head of the first Vong warrior, then swiftly pulled the blade back and jabbed the long hilt in the face of the warrior behind him.  As the warrior screamed and clutched at his ruined face with clawing hands, Maul lunged forward with an underarm movement to take the first warrior in the chest.  He was so close the scent of freshly turned earth was very strong, and assailed his nostrils with a suffocating pungency.  Then the warrior was spitted like a fowl for the pot, screaming a high pitched sound which hurt Maul's ears, as the flesh burned and bone charred upon the sabre.  The axe-like weapon fell from his hand and subsided quietly into a limp haft which lay on the ground at Maul's feet, as the whip fell into lifeless coils.

Without a pause, Maul turned, and switching to the second blade, ignited it and swept it under the knees of the warrior behind him, crippling him, and as he slumped to the ground, took his head.

Both warriors dead, There was at least one more to deal with, the woman.  He hoped she was not also a warrior.  These people not being detectable in the Force, he must further heighten his physical awareness and listen for every tiny sound, every crack of a twig, or roll of a stone which might indicate the presence of another opponent - the smallest movement of one of these would cause a movement in the air itself and he must be aware of subtle changes in air pressure.  It may mean his death if he were not, and he was not yet ready for death.

For a moment in time, nothing stirred, and gradually, the jungle returned to life as birds made their noises and smaller frightened creatures resumed their business in bushes and trees.  His tunic was in rents and tatters, the thick soft cloth having absorbed many of the blows from his opponents cutting weapons.  Pulling the shreds of dark fabric off him, he used them to clean some of the wounds on his chest and arms, then wipe away some of his blood before discarding them.  He was much fatigued, and in need of refreshment.  Breathing heavily, he surveyed the carnage and the mutilated bodies of his dead opponents.  ‘Victorious!’  He bared his teeth in a snarl and giving in to a most primitive impulse, growled, as he switched off his sabre and clipped it to his belt, staring at the remains steaming on the floor of the forest.

Strange beings these warriors.  They were lean and muscular, and close up, he could see what he now knew to be disfigurements and mutilations.  The features were asymmetrical as though from broken bones badly set, and the skin was heavily patterned with whorls and scars cut into the skin.  One had lost the tips of two fingers – whether in battle or more ritual he could not tell.  Another had lost an eye, and replaced it with a coloured stone.  Lost in battle, he decided, for whatever he had witnessed while he had watched them work, surely no warrior would maim himself so, and reduce his capacity to fight.

They had fought well. These had been worthy adversaries, he thought, stirring the remains of one of his victims with his boot.  As he did so, the thin cautery of the fatal wound burst, and bloody guts, still warm and steaming, spilled onto the dusty soil.

His own guts were sore, his skin was abraded and bruised.  He bled from many cuts and more than a dozen deep gashes in his flesh, and another jagged wound on his neck.  He ignored the pain, searched the Force for a glimmer of departing life, a warrior’s celebration of death, but again, nothing.  The nullity he saw in the Force when the warriors were alive, merely flickered and disappeared with their breath.

Stooping, he picked up an axe, dead and motionless now there was no owner to control it.  It fell from his fingers, glistening and slippery with his own deep red and thick blood which dripped slowly from his fingers, as he turned it this way and that to examine the form of this unique weapon and discover its nature.  He wiped his hand again on the tattered remnants of his tunic, drawing his hand roughly down his flank and thigh and picked up the axe again.

As he did so, the smell of the dead warriors assailed his nostrils, the fresh earthiness changing rapidly to a sour stench, as if milk were curdling.  There was much that he must discover about this species that he had not seen before; the weapons; their blankness in the Force, the ferocity of them.  The fanaticism in the eyes of these warriors as they threw themselves into battle with almost religious fervour served them well in their endeavours, for he had been hard pressed, hard pressed indeed.  Such fanaticism boded ill for the galaxy if they were ever enemies, and he wondered how many of them, there were.

Maul squatted by one of the bodies, and picked up a lifeless hand.  He turned it, scrutinising the long claws and the sharp bony spurs evident on the knuckles.  Both claws and spurs were as sharp as razors.  He pulled at the hand to stretch the arm, saw the longer spur on the back of the elbow – it was one of these spurs that had raked his neck to such vicious effect.   These beings were bred to the purpose, engineered for war, he concluded.

He looked at the bodies again.  Two of them, the third still unaccounted for.  These dead were stinking now, and he found the pungent ammonia-like smell made him want to vomit.  The strewn and steaming guts had cooled, and were disintegrating rapidly in the warm humidity of the forest, forming a grey slime over the bright red.  Small black insect-like bodies writhed and crawled in the rotting membranes, perhaps symbiotes fleeing their host.  If there was knowledge to be gained, he must gain it quickly before it dissolved into a foul sea of organic slush, then he must burn their remains lest they be discovered by compatriots of the fallen men.

*****

As he dropped the hand, a small draft of air stirred and flickered over the nape of his neck.  Speed was needed now!  His senses were heightened to the extent that time seemed to slow down for him.  Just in time, he rolled to one side and somersaulted to his feet.  His hand flew to the hilt of his sabre, as a small weapon flew past his right ear and embedded itself into the earth instead of under his jaw as had been intended.

He stepped behind a tree, to place it between himself and the direction from whence the weapon had come, and watched, waited.  He was mindful that his back was unprotected and he listened for every sound, every change in cadence of the forests' natural background noise.

A breeze disturbed the longer grasses in front of him and he detected a faint movement against the direction of the wind.  It must indicate the path of his quarry, he reasoned, and someone, or something, moved stealthily through them, most likely the woman.  He moved noiselessly around the tree, keeping it between him and whoever approached him, waiting for her to come to him.

And she did, springing suddenly from the tall grasses at the side of him, leaping for his shoulders, a short snaking whip in one hand and a knife in the other.  He caught the tail of the whip, wrapped it around his hand, and pulled, hard.  Sharp spines again tore his palm and he dropped the sabre, reaching for the hand bearing the knife.

She was unbalanced, and missed her strike for his throat, catching the knife-edge on a horn.  He ignored the burning pain in his hand, and pulled her crashing to the ground.  When they struggled, he rolled with her so intimately he could smell the earthy other-world scent of her.  He reached for her neck and squeezed, tight.

The body of the warrior woman suddenly slackened.  Ever cautious, he turned her over onto her face and secured her hands behind her with bindings pulled from a pouch in his belt, then tied her ankles to her wrists.  The blood welling from his hand got in the way, making everything slippery.  When she started to rouse, and moaned a little, he placed his knee in the small of her back and used his weight to keep her still, that he might finish binding her.  She was small and slightly built - without her weapons she could offer little resistance, despite her determined attempts to evade his hands and escape. Then he shackled her feet, wiped his hand free of the blood, and waited for her to awaken.

*******

The female stared coolly at him, shackled as she was to the tree.  Her skin was delicately marked – tattooed perhaps – with pits of a darker blue upon her pale blue skin, in the same manner as that of her comrades.  There were whorls and circles, small lines and curls in the pattern, which contrasted oddly with the smears of blood on her face.  He wondered whether the markings had religious significance, whether they were intended to cause fear in an enemy, or were created for beauty’s sake.

And he did find her beautiful.  Apart from the tattoo-like scars, she was unmarked by any injury.  Her features were regular and even, there were no disfigurements from bones broken and badly set.  Her eyes were large, and a deeper blue, the bones of her face small and fine.

Out of reach, he squatted on his heels in front of her, and reaching forward, he took her chin tight in his hand.  He turned her face roughly from one side to the other to study her, and when she haughtily turned her face away, hit her, hard, with the back of his hand.  His blood smeared angrily across her cheek, and  the slap resounded through the clearing.  He did not expect submission, nor did she give it.  Her proud manner excited him, and he recognised a warrior in his own mould - dedicated, single minded, someone to take account of.  He decided to test this theory.

She wore light armour on chest and back, with greaves and protection for her arms.  It was a curiosity.  It was not metal, yet resisted the blows from his sabre, and he got to his feet and prowled around her, tentatively testing the ignited blade on the breastplate, studying the fastenings, and fittings.  To remove it for closer examination, he ignited one blade and cut it from her with a studied carelessness, burning her a little in the process.  She started at the first touch of pain, then closed her eyes and murmured something, and bore the rest unflinchingly.  He wondered whether the murmur was a prayer of some sort, and hoped that she might imagine him to be an uncivilised brute, without honour.  One who might take pleasure simply in the administration of pain for it's own sake.  Maul smiled in the certain knowledge that this would dissolve her will when it came to closer questioning.

He circled her, holding the sabre nonchalantly over one shoulder, hurling questions at her, but she did not answer.  Standard Basic, the language of the Naboo - both High and country dialect - the patois of Tatooine, the elegant and stylised language of the Senate, even Iridonian.  He tried them all but she appeared to understand nothing, so he reverted to standard Basic.

"A fierce warrior woman, indeed, to let herself get caught and bound!" he sneered, and pushed at her  with the hilt of his sabre.  He thought he detected a glare and a thinning of her lips and the muscles of her jaw clenched as she bit back a reply.  A response at last!  Good.  This might be amusing.  He ran the hilt caressingly over her shoulders and up the side of her head.  Then he placed it smartly under her jaw and forced her head up.  He wanted her eyes to meet his and be subdued by them.  He was, perversely, both disappointed and pleased when she glared back at him with equal ferocity.

"You will not speak to me?  That you will, Madame, and it will not be too long before you babble to me as freely as you do to your mother!"  His smile was engaging and pleasant as he said this, and his tone of voice was conversational.  It was a statement of fact, as far as he was concerned.  Oddly, he did not look forward to questioning her at all.

Clipping his sabre back on his belt and circling her tightly bound form again, he studied her more closely.  The female found her arms unheedingly pulled about, the weapon-sharp claws on her hands tugged, the small spurs on her knuckles and elbows twisted painfully, as their value as weapons was determined.  She bore the intense scrutiny with a stoic expression, which he found irritating in the extreme.  He snarled at her.

Having completed his initial investigations, Maul squatted in a thoughtful posture in front of her, unheeding of his rent garments and many wounds.  She evaded his inimical stare again, looked arrogantly into the distance and acted as though she often spent her days shackled to a tree in such a manner.  There was no sense of her, in the Force, indeed, there was less to perceive than of a wild bantha on the hot sands of Tattooine.  When he forced his mind into the web of sentience that was the Force, to try and find her, all he found was a nullity, a space.

"If you like to spend your days in this manner," Maul reasoned with her, "it can be arranged.  From time to time I will make sport with you, and you will be free of your bonds for a while.  But only a while."  Again, he smiled another very engaging smile at her, and made sure she saw him appraise her face and form, and find it delightful.  He leaned forward as if to press a kiss on her, and whispered intimately in her ear.  "A very little while, for I am hard and quick, and you will not find it pleasant.  We warriors find little time for dalliance, do we not, and must take our pleasures where we can."  He was disappointed if he thought the threat of attack would daunt her.  It was even possible that there was a trace of a sneer on her own face.  He was lost in reluctant admiration.  Such resistance was not often encountered - the training of these warriors must be as hard as his own.

For a moment, thoughts of his own female surfaced in his mind, and a sudden and savage lust rose in his heart.  He needed violence, pain, and mindless rut, to rid himself of the turmoil of battle, but now was not the time for such matters – he put the thought behind him.

A biting insect settled onto his arm, and he slapped it before it fastened into his flesh, leaving a smear of dark bloody entrails and crushed pieces of chitin.  He must bathe, for his drying blood and the rapidly decomposing bodies were attracting a veritable zoo of carrion-eaters and biting things.

He cut down a branch from a tree, and hog-tied her to it, reducing her quick and easy gait to an awkward shuffle.  It made her angry, he could see the humiliation she felt.  On the short walk back to the Infiltrator, he stationed himself behind her, and if she slowed down, pushed her, hard, with his sabre.  Once back at the ship, while he removed the embedded spines from his hand, and bathed, he left her shackled to the stoutest stanchion in the cargo bay. A probe droid watched her,  and he turned off the lights to keep her in the dark.

*****

In the morning, he removed the bindings and roughly showed her the fresher, threw her in the shower fully dressed and hosed her down to cleanse her, for like him, she was bloodied and would attract all manner of biting insects otherwise.  Not knowing the physiology of her race, he did not use bacta ointment on her few wounds.

During the hosing, her tunic fell from her body to the floor, and she gracefully retrieved it and turned away from him to rinse the thick fabric in the stream of water.  Her body was lean and sinewy, and she comported herself without shame and with great dignity, and he shouted at her to hurry before he turned away, lest he be seen to stare.

Then he took her outside, to interrogate her.  He took the flamethrower with him.

*****

Leaving the female tied to the tree once more, and able to see what he was doing, he slashed her pots and shelves of plants, and alien things imprisoned in transparent containers which looked like glass but were not.  He watched her face as he used the flame thrower to burn to ashes the hut, and whatever she had achieved over the time she had been on the planet.  Not once did she flinch, or make a sound.  She stayed impassive until the end, until he found a loop of twisted braid secreted in a small vessel at the edge of the rough encampment.

About to throw the loop into the fire, her expression became distraught, and she strained at her bonds in apparent distress.  Reaching as she could towards the loop held in his hand ready to throw, "Please.." she screamed, in heavily accented Basic, "do not burn my marriage bond."

Something to use against her!  A lever with which to break her spirit.  His eyes lit up and he turned to face her.  "So, you do have the gift of speech!  What is this then?"  and he held the loop on the end of his finger, tantalisingly towards her.  He started to walk towards her, then suddenly switched the flamethrower on again as he approached.  The sudden flare made her jump and she stared at the flame.

"Marriage bond you say?  You animals marry?"  The contemptuous tone in his voice took her mind off the flame and made her angry, and she bared her teeth at him.  She watched him casually twirl the loop around his index finger and sneer at her.  The flame came closer and must have made her skin become warm, uncomfortably warm.

"The Yuuzhan Vong are not animals!"

"Yuuzhan is it?  Then how do you tell the once-mighty Yuuzhan apart from the animal?  What distinguishes the powerful Yuuzhan warrior from a Krayt dragon."  With an unpleasant smile, he brought the flame a little closer until it started to scorch her tunic, then moved away again.  He wanted to make her uncomfortable and wary.  He wanted her to think he was unnaturally cruel, or casually inattentive to the fact that the flame was too close, because he did not care.  He wanted these thoughts to go through her mind and create an expectation of pain, perhaps even death.

"Do animals weep for their mates?"

"You are not weeping."

 "I weep inside, it is all that the gods allow us, and even that is called heresy by some."  She said this last in a bitter tone, and clamped her lips shut and looked away.

"Now that is the sign of a civilised being, to know that there are greater and more powerful beings above them.  As I have you prisoner, that must make me your 'god' then?"  The flame drifted closer as he sneered. "Shall I give you permission to weep, or shall I dry your tears? Shall I burn your grief out of you?"  He bent and whispered these last words in her ear, like a lover might, then allowed the flamethrower to float closer to her skin.  He watched her tense, then relax again as he rose and stalked past her.

 "What are you?  Why are you here?"  The question was phrased in a short and brutal manner, and Maul's voice was dismissive.  He stood with his back to her surveying the terrain as though she was the least of his problems, and switched the flamethrower off and on as if he was bored.

 "Remove the bonds and I will answer your questions."  She closed her eyes as she said this, and suddenly sounded tired but not defeated.

 Maul considered.  She was a warrior.  Was she honourable?  There was no trace of her in the Force, but she showed all the other characteristics of a thinking sentient being, and as such, should be treated not as animal but on his own level.  Almost on his own level..  He would kill her if she attempted escape, and he must kill her anyway, eventually, for he could not leave her here.  When her compatriots returned, she would inform them of what had transpired, and that would not suit Master Sidious' plans at all, for the Sith must yet remain hidden.

With a small knife from his belt, he cut the ties of her remaining armour and removed it, then he threw it into the smoking remains of the huts, and played the flame thrower upon it.  Satisfied that all was burnt beyond recognition, he put the flamethrower down, and silently cut all her bonds and pulled her to her feet.  To impress upon her that she was very mortal if he chose, he lit one of the blades of his sabre, before throwing her the loop of braid.  She kissed it, and put the braid round her wrist.  Once again, Maul was struck by the common expressions and actions of the humanoid races, and thought he may as well start his questions now.

"I ask again.  What are you, why are you here?"

For answer, the alien woman stooped and held her hand out flat, over the short vegetation which carpeted the ground, and remained motionless for a while.  Quick as thought, her hand suddenly plunged in among the leaves and stems and she brought up to her face a small trembling creature, which lay shivering in her hand.  It had a long scaly tail which she held between finger and thumb, and its' body was covered in fine black scales which had a metallic sheen.

"We are the Yuuzhan Vong.  We shape worlds…" she said, turned the creature over, and with her left hand, cut and snipped at the small body until the bloodied mess bore little resemblance to the animal it had been.  Not once did the animal struggle.  Though once it mewed, faintly, but it lay, passive and shivering while she performed her monstrous work.

"This creature will now spin fine thread for us, when it is healed and whole again."  She held the remains of the trembling animal out to Maul.

Maul was impressed at the brutality of what he had seen, and snatched at her left hand to examine how she had done it.  The fingers ended in tiny knives and fine pincers, one finger had a needle-like pick instead of a nail or claw, and another had what might be very small scissors.  He snatched at the other hand to see whether both were the same, and in the process, the remains of the animal fell to the ground.  She gasped, a sharp intake of breath.

"Do you have no respect for the Essence?"  Her face wore a shocked expression, as though a foul crime had been committed.

"Essence? What is this 'essence'?"

Her eyes widened in horror.  "You do not know of life Essence?"  Her voice also expressed the horror she obviously felt.

Maul gestured at the remains on the ground, and extinguished the life there, for the creature would have died sooner or later, and it may as well be sooner, for the high-pitched mewling was annoying him.  The woman stared at the pitiful remains, and he hoped she was impressed with what she had seen, but her face was suddenly impassive.

"We will discuss this further on the way to Coruscant," and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her in the direction of the Infiltrator.  True to her word, she followed without protest, running to keep pace with him, for his strides were longer than hers.

An hour later, on the way  to Coruscant and his Master, he began to question her again.

*******

Two days had passed, and Maul sat staring at the monitor in the forward bow of the Infiltrator, watching the wrapped body of the Yuuzhan Vong woman, whom he now knew as Atana, drift into the corona of a small sun.  The sun was the centre of a lost system somewhere on the way to Corusant.  It was a sparse and lonely system consisting of two dead planets, a couple of dark and broken moons, and the small white sun - a fitting place for an unknown woman to die and be disposed of.

Atana had answered all his questions, freely and without equivocation - there had been no need for torture, or the specialised techniques he had sometimes had to use to extract information.  For some reason he could not fathom, this pleased him.  During the times when he had stopped, that she might rest and gather her thoughts, and prepare for the next round of intensive questioning, he had found she was fascinated with the things she saw on the view-screens.  She had very rarely had time or opportunity to see outside their spacecraft, the world-ships that carried the tribes and clans of the Yuuzhan Vong, to a new home.  The Infiltrator had passed by scenes she found both fascinating and terrible together, a view with which Maul had heartily concurred.  So when she said she wanted to watch the twin suns of Haibo for a while, as a reward for her cooperation he let her, and allowed her a short time of peace, and reflection.  For a time, the majesty of the wild and deadly fires which writhed between the two suns, shamed them both into silence, until it was time for further interrogation.

Atana had told him she was a 'Shaper', one of many on the ships which scoured the galaxy looking for a world to conquer, and where the Chosen People of the god, Yun Yamka, might make a space for themselves.  She was a shaper of new forms of life, of plants, and animals, and of worlds.  A genetic engineer.  The starving peoples of the Yuuzhan had been traveling for many generations to find a new planet, a new world where they might make a home since their own star went nova.  They abhorred technology, but rather shaped nature to their own ends, making food, clothing, and all they needed, from the abundance of life around them.  Even their ships and the hyperspace drives were grown and nurtured like children.

When she had scoffed at his technology, and said it was a heresy and offence against the gods, he shouted at her.  When she accused the Republic of decadence and corruption, he privately agreed with her but locked her in the chilly cargo hold for the night, as punishment for her impudence.

When she had described their gods, their sacrifices, and their worship of pain, he shuddered, but recognised the parallels with his own existence as an Apprentice to a Sith Master.  'All peoples should share this vision of a heaven to come, after the pain of existence was done with,' she said, 'and it was the way of the Yuuzhan to generously extend their cultural legacy to all they came into contact with, whether they wanted it or not.'

When she had exclaimed with wonder at the beauty of the galaxy, he let her watch for he would kill her soon, as his questions were nearly done.

He had decapitated her with his lightsabre.  She had been watching the fires of the twin suns rage between the two stars.  If she had heard the snap-hum of the lightsabre as he switched it on, she gave no sign.  If she saw the reflection of the red beam in the monitor as he swung the weapon, she did not turn, but continued to watch in absorbed concentration while two tears struggled silently down her fine cheek bones.  Just before he made the fatal stroke, she took the braid from where she had hidden it in her tunic.  She twisted it in her hands and whispered something in Basic, "I will be with Decai and his body will be whole and perfect," and she leaned forward to touch the flames on the monitor.

He assumed 'Decai' had been her husband or lover, and let the blade separate her head from her body in a swift and merciful manner, because there was nothing more to say.  And while pain was a common thread in their existence, he would not inflict it on her now, for it was not appropriate.

And now, he sat, playing with the point of the small sharp knife held hard against his thumb, staring at the image of her body, wrapped in a coarse cloth, as it fell into an anonymous sun.

*******

Master Sidious received his report, and he was pleased with his Apprentice - Maul basked in the glow of Sidious' approval for several minutes.  Then the two men discussed the question of the Yuuzhan Vong.

"What do you see in them, Apprentice, that may be of importance to the galaxy?"  Sidious turned to the long window overlooking Coruscant and waited for Maul's answer.

"They are fanatics, my Master.  They fight like demons.  If there are many of them, they will be difficult to overcome.  We should consider an alliance."  The scars itched, reminding him of the many wounds he had sustained.

"And not a ragged band of nomads, made desperate by hunger and poverty?  Should the Sith make alliance with a common rabble?"   The tone of voice was scornful, and Maul frowned as he remembered the dishonour of the scheming and conniving Nemoidians with whom his Master treated, but he continued.  Sidious turned and looked at Maul with narrowed eyes.

 "They have the power to turn nature back upon itself and produce weapons that are awesome in their effectiveness, Master.  We could learn from their genetic engineering techniques."   Maul inclined his head respectfully, ever mindful of his position as a mere tool of his Master.

 "I see simple home-made weapons, perhaps you were almost overcome by them."  Anger filled Maul's mind at this transparent slur on his fighting capability, but he damped the rage.

 "Not at all, Master.  They desire to proselytise and conquer the galaxy. The convictions they hold are strong and powerful.  We should discover more about them and assess them to find what sort of threat they pose."

"I see a religious people of strong conviction, that is all.  There will be no assessment, there is no need."

So Maul the Apprentice remembered his vow of obedience to the Sith, and bowed his head in deference as Sidious dismissed his concerns.  He bowed again and turned, preparing to go, but he was not yet dismissed.

***

"I have not given you leave to go!" snapped Sidious, and watched as Maul fell to his knees and touched his feet with his frontal horn to show his submission and deference.

"Your pardon, Master. What is it you wish of me?"

"Patience!"  Sidious turned away to the window and for a time, contemplated the matter of the Yuuzhan Vong.  Whatever he had said to Maul, he felt a faint stirring in the Force at the mention of them, as though momentous events were gathering beyond the horizons of even his foresight and comprehension.  Were these three Vong the far outriders of Galactic upheaval?  Whether they were or not, he had his own plans which would soon bear fruit - the Chancellorship would be his in a standard year or so and then? How long to Emperor?  Any threat posed by the Vong was in the far distance, and for now, they needed to focus on the hated Jedi, for in the death of their order would lie the greatest triumph of the Sith Knights.

"You may rise," he said.  Maul, suitably chastened, did so and came to stand silently behind his Master like a dark shadow, hands folded in his wide black sleeves.

"Apprentice, while you must be mindful of the future, you must also keep your attention in the here and now, for that is the reality we have chosen.  Our philosophy allows us to choose the future in which we would live, and I choose a future without Jedi, and that, soon."  Sidious gestured at the cityscape, and a little way across the ever bustling traffic lanes rose the four spires of the Jedi temple, bordering on the edge of one of the many red-light districts of seedy bars and clubs.  "Tell me, what do you see."

Maul's reply surprised and pleased him, for he thought he lacked subtlety in matters politic.  "Tools, Master," he said, and so he turned his head a little way to see a ferocious grin spread across Maul's face as he stared at the Temple.

"Explain yourself."

"Greed, corruption, lust, self-interest, idleness, the list is endless Master, but most of all - they lack self-control.  The masses are weak.  They are mindless and spineless, morals and principles are unknown concepts to them.  These are things we can use, as we have done with the Nemoidians.  As for the Jedi, I shall root them out and, in time, kill them all."

A dark shadow seemed to gather around Maul as he worked his anger into a tightly focused mental energy directed towards his most hated enemies.  His expression became one of contempt and disgust, and Sidious felt that his next words, spoken in a quiet and deadly voice, were not directed to him, but to that which he represented.

"How they will die, when the glorious Order of the Sith is revealed to them.  I will hunt each one of them down to the ends of the galaxy and kill them where they stand."

The two men looked at the Temple in companionable silence; Sidious with a little approving smile of self-satisfaction.  He nodded at Maul.  The Apprentice was walking the correct path and his objective was quite clear.  He dismissed him to his duties.

****

Within himself, Maul considered how he might use knowledge of the disregarded Yuuzhan Vong for his own purposes, or even, perhaps, against his Master, Sidious, at some point in the future.  For now, the heightened perception would enhance his fighting skills enormously.  The Yuuzhan peoples themselves might make their existence known before long, and he would be prepared for that eventuality.  Even though they could not be seen in the Force, he already felt a formless threat darkening the future like a thunderstorm on the horizon.  There were preparations to make in readiness for warriors to meet on level terms, and he looked forward to that day.  Until then, however, there were more pressing needs to be met.

*****

Maul's time was his own for a while, so he spent it with his woman, who once upon a time had been a Jedi.  She was renegade now, and lost to the order, but maintained their discipline and training under the tutelage of her own Master, of whom Maul knew nothing.  Sidious knew of her, but dismissed her as being of no importance, and merely an object of recreation for his apprentice to treat or mistreat as he wished.  If he had known that Maul called her 'Rana na Gaya' he would have ordered him to kill her, for this meant 'most precious of women', and in Sidious' eyes, that would also mean a divided loyalty.  For how could a Sith bind himself forever, both to his Order, and to a female?

Neither did the woman know of the meaning of these three words, for they were in Maul's own tongue which was meaningless to her.  He preferred that it was ever so, lest she think him weak and foolish.

Maul raced from his ship, through the building, to his own place where he lived with her.  His blood raged with need for her now, and the need to sharpen his senses to battle the unknown warriors, the Yuuzhan Vong, had left a surprising legacy.

His awareness was taken to new heights.  He felt the slightest breeze as it drifted across his skin; he smelled the tiniest scent that drifted along on the wind, and he heard the smallest sound made by any living creature.  He more easily sensed the mood of those he passed, finding that their thoughts were sharp and clear.  The Force bent more easily to his will, and the darkest threads of the web parted with a willingness which pleased him mightily.  Power flowed through his fingers, and he felt charged with a supernatural potency he had never experienced before - it made him light headed.  And while his mind and spirit were elevated by the experience, in contrast, he wanted to touch and feel, to bury himself in sensual experience, to be in contact with something material and physical.  His woman.

And when he came upon her, he touched her face and gave her the lightest of kisses.  'Rana na Gaya', he purred into her ear, and folded her into his arms.  She did not know the words, but the manner in which he said it, and the look in his eyes as he did so, turned her bones to jelly with desire.

"It has been a hard mission," he said, "you shall be balm for my bed," and he took his tongue delicately along her lips, and parted them, then played in her mouth with her.  Her tongue pushed back, and played with his, and she cupped his beautiful patterned face in her hands, looked, and kissed again.

"And balm for your wounds?"  She stroked one of the barely healed scars, and hung her arms round his neck, gazing fondly into his glowing eyes.

"Hai!  I want your body and soul, woman, not your nannying!  My wounds need no balm!"  They kissed and laughed unceasingly, as he pushed her backward to their bed.

*****

After they had satisfied their initial hunger for one another, they slept.  But then, Maul woke, and laid in his bed, cradling his woman in his arms, he thought to try something new.  His sensibilities were enhanced, and he decided to use each to the fullest.  He put his hand gently on her waist, then heightened his awareness of everything around him.  He would try something new with her, and use his heightened awareness to the fullest effect.  Each of his five senses would be sated with different aspects of her, then he would use the sixth - the Force, as he had never used it before.

Firstly sight and touch.  He would feast his eyes on her body while she slept, and explore the contours of her body.  Gently he drew back the rough cover, and looked at her thin wiry body laid partly on his own lean and sinewy frame.  One leg laid over his.  It obscured his view of her, so he pushed her leg off him and rolled her back a little.  He could see all of her now, but she stirred in sleep, partially woke and reached her hand to his chest.

 He wanted her still for the moment, so he covered her hand with his and felt her relax, dreamily compliant with his unspoken wishes.  Then he leaned over her and looked again.  The dim blue light from the slave monitor afforded little illumination, but he could see her white skin with an unearthly blue sheen, the hills and gentle curves of her body making deeper shadows of darker blue and black.  As the display flickered on the monitor, the colour, light, and shade, changed on her skin, highlighting bones, and creating glints of light in her glossy hair.  He rubbed the silky strands between his fingers, pulled it so it slid like satin under his hand.  There was hair under her arms, thin and wispy.  He loved hair, for his race had none, and he tugged gently at the fine strands, different in texture yet again, from the other hair she grew.

 He looked at her dark eyelashes resting on her cheek, and bent down to draw his tongue lightly over them, feeling every hair, and watched her sleepy smile as she enjoyed this caress.  He brushed her mouth lightly with the tips of his fingers.   She was not beautiful by the standards of her race, that he knew.  There was prettiness of a kind, but what made her truly beautiful to him was the light in her eyes when she looked at him; the welcome in her body when he wanted her; and the way her heart and soul desired him so.  And that she did not judge him, ever.

 Sometimes in his delirium of passion for her, he wondered what kind of Sith he was to feel like this for a mere woman, and a human at that, for he disliked the species.  But he hid these thoughts from Sidious, lest he be forced to give up this delight, this pleasure, this feeling he had for her, for she was truly a balm for his dark heart and evil soul.

Now he wanted her  again, and he looked at the delights she gave to him so unstintingly.  The long neck which he loved to nuzzle and bite a little.  Her square shoulders, muscular from her training and sabre practise.  Her arms, which wound around him so willingly were firmly muscular in a feminine way, and her hands were slender, with nails cut square and uncompromisingly against the finger.

His eyes traveled lower, and he traced a finger delicately over her small high breasts which looked like gentle hills in the dark.  He wanted to hold and cup in his hand, but decided to leave that pleasure for later.  For now, he wanted to just look at her.

 He looked down to her stomach, flat and boyish.  His light touch felt the tiny hairs, evidence of her mammalian ancestry so unlike his own, and his hand trailed over her thin gymnasts hips as his eyes took in the dark valley between her thighs.  That valley hid the pleasures he wanted most from her.  He brushed the scant bush of wiry hair, and heard her murmur, and turned, to see her smile as she pushed against him in her sleep and curled up closer against him, wrapped her leg over his again.

Those long legs of hers wound around him often, whenever he wanted her.  Around his hips, around his waist, around his neck - wherever and however he took her, she held him fiercely to her, not letting him go until she herself was sated.

Now to use his sense of smell.  Putting his hand back on her body, he took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and breathed in again, flaring his nostrils and finding her soft musky scent.  He breathed gently, barely moving, and with every slow inhalation, he found a new note.

With the first breath, he found a faint remembrance of the H’ya flower, which grew on the mountain slopes of southern Iridonia, and a trace of coarse Jedi soap.  The soap made his nostrils prickle and he thought he might sneeze and wake her, but he suppressed the instinct and did not.

With the next few breaths he took, there was the deeper musky scent of woman, and he bent his head to her neck, gently flicked his long black tongue over her skin, and found the subtle taste of hormone which inflamed his desires so much.  He placed his lips on her neck, opened his mouth a little to draw the warm air over his palate and the back of his throat to enhance the scent, and savour every nuance, breathed in again, more slowly now.

He heightened his perception more, and became trance-like.  He felt the universe at once expand, yet contract so it was centred totally about the smell of her.  There was a pleasing sensation of falling through infinite space as she stirred and stretched her body against his, skin against skin like satin against silk.  He regulated his breathing, matched hers in rhythm and depth, felt his nerves spark and his skin crawl with anticipation as he found a hidden depth to the smell of her; a tang of something fresh and spring-like.  It reminded him of soil just ploughed and freshened with rain, brightened with early morning sunlight.  Suddenly he could barely resist the need to bury himself within her, the urge became so strong.  Lightly drawing his tongue over her skin again, he wondered if she were becoming fertile, then he kissed her, just drawing his lips lightly over hers.

She woke, and he smiled and saw she realised his game.  She kept her breathing matched with his, put her arms around him, and  touched his skin lightly with her finger-tips and caressed the back of his neck.  He turned her fully onto her back, put a knee between hers and gracefully positioned himself over her, resting his weight on his forearms, and looked into her eyes.

Even in the dim light he could discern the tiny flecks of gold in the dark brown, as if he were suddenly granted the gift of seeing in the dark.  They breathed in harmony again.  He kissed her lightly once more, and she opened her mouth to draw in his tongue, feeling the cat-like roughness of his teasing hers.

He leaned his head against her chest to listen to the inrush of air into her lungs as she breathed, and the thud of her heart as it beat.  A strange rhythm it seemed to him, with only two beats, and not three like his own.

 Almost as strange as the taste of her, which for now, was clean and fresh, like spring water.  The taste of her changed over time.  Sometimes she was musky, sometimes salty, sometimes she tasted of iron.  He did not know why, but each seasonal change excited him in a different way and affected the manner in which he joined with her.  Sometimes he must be rough and hard, as a warrior should be; sometimes he must be tender which was foreign to his nature; sometimes he let her pleasure him with her mouth, and tongue, and fingers.  Sometimes he would not join with her at all, and then when they did, it was all the more sweet for their abstinence.  And how did he taste to her?  She had told him that he had a metallic taste to her human senses, and that she liked it, very much.

His hands roamed freely over her body, touching where he wished.  And when he cupped her breast as he had wanted, and kissed it, he was overjoyed to hear her moan with pleasure.  When he touched her womanly places, and gave her delicate caresses her senses could barely stand, he was almost overwhelmed when she begged him to take her.

He moved her legs and slipped himself into her body, the smooth delicate skin enclosing him like a perfectly fitting glove, warm; tight; slick.  This action alone was almost enough to take him over the edge of reason and into fulfilment, but still he managed to hold back, and slid into her slowly and with infinite care as she sighed and arched her back in pleasure.  She slid her legs wantonly up and down his thighs, and caressed the muscles of his back.  He liked her wantonness, the way she opened herself to him, and he started to move inside her, slowly, carefully, as cognisant of her pleasure as his.  He moved until he felt her quiver on the very edge of ecstasy, then he moved just a tiny fraction at a time, preserving the moment.

Pulling away from her, “Live in the moment, Tai Shan…” he said softly, pushing his fingers into her hair and heightening his senses again to feel every strand wrapped around his hands.  "Rest in the pleasure,"

And after a time during which they floated in a sea of pleasure, "Let us come together, now," he whispered, taking his hands up her flanks, taking her arms up over her head, and grasping her hands tightly.  He stretched her out beneath him, rested his legs on hers, feeling every bit of skin that he was able to touch.  He thrust harder, and deeper, until the world exploded into a well of ecstasy.

And, using the Force, he joined his mind with hers, until they spun together in a merging and mingling of souls that was both wonderful and terrible together.

*****

Later that night, as they slept, he cradled her as a Zabrak warrior always cradles his woman, arms wrapped around her, giving protection even during sleep.  His head rested on a small plain wooden headrest padded with soft leather, her head rested on his chest, and her legs were entangled with his.

He woke, just once, and a deep resounding peace washed over him, making him smile into the dark.  Without meaning to, he stroked her hair and face, while he reflected that at this moment, he was in complete harmony and balance with the Force and the Dark.  She provided the perfect counterpoint to the unremitting harshness of his life as Sidious' Apprentice.

His fingers wound themselves in her long hair, and he kissed the top of her head, lightly so she would not wake.

Maul was content.  He slept.