Note: I came up with this idea in my exploration of the relationship between Nihilus and Starkiller. While almost every moment of their mutual life is filled with pain, hatred, anger, power, and training, I realized that not EVERY moment of their life revolved around those things. Starkiller was a growing boy. He needed explanations of life and training in things beyond power. He needed to understand the human body, some psychology, and other things we take for granted in order to live and exist as people. Naturally Nihilus was not ABOUT to explain girls properly, hence one of Starkiller's biggest weak social points.

But there are moments.

Interlude - Cutting his hair

Nihilus was no stranger to weaknesses of the flesh. He had many of them in his mortal life, and now had gone beyond them to something greater; but when he looked at Galen Marek, a six year-old, dripping in sweat, with a long mane of hair on his head, and blood coming from his lips from split lips, the ascended Sith Lord was reminded of an age old weakness: obsession.

"Clean yourself." He commanded.

Galen, being only a few months into his service at this point, was startled and jumped up from where he was exercising. The boy looked at him with raw hatred and loathing, but hid it well behind his fear. "W-what? M-m-m-my M-Master?"

"Clean yourself." Nihilus repeated. The boy straightened himself into perfect posture, for an exhausted child, and bowed with a respectful, but slightly haughty, 'yes, sir'. Seeing that to be the end of it, Nihilus went on his way.

Nihilus checked on other assets to his personal 'army'. Although 'army' was hardly the right term for it. He had a number of fallen Jedi and Force-Users under his control which he employed, the strongest, secret, and most ambitious of which was Galen. Visas Marr's report on a group of Jedi hiding on a nearby planet earned his approval. Her fear of him worked in his favor thus far, but soon he speculated she would become truly unruly once she became a teenager. A part of him calculated that she would turn on him at some point in the coming years, and so he made quick plans on how to deal with it. She could not kill him. Oh, she could try, but even pretending to die would get his enemies off his back, so her vengeance might very well prove in his favor one day.

Other assets failed to report in, and Nihilus sent agents to hunt them down. All the while from his throne room at the bridge of his personal flagship, the Ravager.

The Ravager, as a ship, was unusual. It was the first of his experiments in understanding the fusion of life and death, and it had ultimately failed in his opinion, but that didn't shake the knowledge that the ship was forever transformed into… something else. It wasn't alive. It wasn't dead. It wasn't even a fusion of the Force into a metallic embodiment as the experiment intended, and as he studied based on holocron design.

One of the unusual aspects of the ship was its 'tone' it portrayed from time to time. So when the ship felt 'amused', Nihilus's curiosity was peaked. He followed the ship's feelings to the source and… screeched to a halt.

Galen was even worse off than he was before. He had bathed and cleaned up the blood from his lip, but his hair was… was… it was an abomination. His hair was haphazardly cut and frayed in multiple layers all across his neckline, shoulder, ear, and back.

Nihilus was not a being of emotion, but that didn't take away the ghost, the very memory, of emotion. Right then he felt the panic attack coming on. "Galen." He said, "Have you ever cut your own hair?"

Galen dropped to a knee in subservience. "No, my master. It… it was always… M-m-mother." He couldn't say her without choking on emotion.

Nihilus internally raged, of course. This child was not yet self-sufficent in even the smallest of ways! The hair taunted the Sith with its frayed edges and eye-sore layers and... he was not going to live with this for an instant longer! Nihilus reached out with the Force and brought a crate over. He pointed. "Sit."

Galen looked up in fearful curiosity, and hesitated. Nihilus lashed out and touched his shoulder with a shadow. The brief contact ripped into his apprentices flesh and soul, sending him into agony. Galen fell. "Sit." Nihilus repeated, and this time, Galen did not hesitate. Galen crawled up onto the crate and sat his small butt on the edge.

"Stay." Nihilus commanded before departing. He returned soon after with a pair of knives.

Galen sat up perfectly straight in fear as his master walked up behind him. Sweat appeared on his brow as he wondered what he was going to do. He couldn't see the monster, so he couldn't… The metal came periously close to his head and swiped. Galen flinched, but Nihilus grabbed him by the shoulder with a gloved hand. The cloth preventing physical contact this time. "Stay. Don't move."

"Yes… M-m-master." He stuttered and straightened as much as possible. Chills went down the boy's spine with each feeling of cold metal on his head or neck. The pair of knives glided through the air together and… snipped his hair.

"M-master? Wh-wh-what are you d-doing?"

"Cutting your hair."

The fear Galen felt dissipated slightly with the knowledge of what Nihilus was doing. He forced himself to breathe despite the blades nipping his ears, but there was no blood and Nihilus did not nick him. He controlled the knives with the force as an improvised pair of scissors expertly. After a few minutes of silent cutting, Galen felt himself relax. The minutes ticked by in a moment of companianiable silence. No training, no lecture, no torture, no hatred, no memories, no guilt, no past, and no future. Just silence and manicuring.

"I'm done." Nihilus announced and cleaned the blades on Galen's robe. Galen glanced down at all the hair on the ground and turned his gaze to a mirror. The Sith Lord wasn't half bad.

Nihilus flowed out of the room, but stopped at the door. "If you ever tell anyone about this, I'll make you regret it."

Galen's fear returned and he nodded rapidly.

Nihilus would cut his hair every month to keep it from going out of control within his obsession. Fifteen years later, when Varus was a slave, yet free of the Sith, he would take a pair of knives, and still cut his hair the same way Nihilus had. A small part of him regretted it, because whether it be warm or sad, these moments would prove the be the only fatherly ones they would have as Sith Lord and Apprentice.