Chapter Two:
Strange, Stranger, Strangest.
"Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools, and those who dare not are slaves."
― Lord Byron
Maul's P.O.V
Maul remembered very little of his mother, Kycina. The faint whiff of Brula fruit, the shine of pale skin under a red sun, the ghost of a lasting kiss to his brow. Little things that were bigger than they first appeared to be.
Certainly, he knew the story of his mother, even if Maul only held the faintest notions of her himself. He knew she wished him free, unbound in subservience to the Nightsisters unlike many Dathomirian Zabraks, a slave in all but chains. He knew she had stumbled across Mace Windu not long before Maul was whisked away, scouting a cave not far from the stone Fortress of her sisterhood.
He knew she had been desperate.
It was luck, truly, that had led Maul to walking the path he did now. A tragic set of circumstances barely sidestepped by fortune. If Mace Windu had not been sent out to scout Dathomir after Master Yoda had sensed Maul in the Force, imaginably Mother Talzin would have indeed handed him over to the strange visitor who had come lurking at their fringes not long before Windu had arrived.
The offer of Power had been tempting enough for head of the Nightsisters.
Perhaps Darth Sidious would have taken him on as an apprentice.
Perhaps Maul would have fallen to the Dark side.
Perhaps he would have led a very different life.
And perhaps the Force only knew what that saga would have been like.
Mace Windu, with the help of Maul's mother, had gotten to him first, and the rest was history.
History with the whiff of Brula fruit, a lingering, tear-wet kiss to his brow, and a melancholic farewell smile underneath the red sun.
Maul had not seen his mother since.
Neither would he ever have the chance to.
The Nightsisters had executed her for betrayal and disobedience not two days after Maul's departure.
Darth Sidious had then done the very same to them. Ironic, if not comical.
Nevertheless, Maul remembered his early years at the Jedi Temple of Coruscant more keenly than he did the phantom of his mother. Most of all, he remembered how… Angry he had been, how full of frenzy and fury and hot, burning hatred.
Those had been hard, gruelling years. Maul's innate connection to the Dark side had been instinctive, enduring, and difficult to purge.
Scared too.
Maul had been so very young, an Alpha in a foreign place who was still too young to understand his impulses, away from everything he had ever known, and so very, very scared.
It was to no one's surprise, then, surely, that Master Yoda had placed him under Mace Windu's tutelage.
A place where Maul had thrived.
Mace Windu taught him that his connection to the darker parts of the Force did not need to be expunged, that it did not make himself inherently evil, but understood, controlled, and in turn, from Padawan to Master to sitting Council, the youngest to ever earn a seat, if one forgot of Kenobi's existence which Maul was all too happy to do, and the chagrin of that Skywalker knight, Maul had soaked in all his Master could give.
You could call Master Maul many things, of which he would not dispute, but undedicated was not one of them.
Training day and night and day again, he had pushed himself to be faster, stronger, harder. If only to ensure no other mother such as his own would be forced to go to such dire lengths for their child.
It had not been an easy journey for him. Undeniably, a Dathomirian Zabrak, with their distinctive colouring and markings of Clan, on Coruscant of all places, surrounded in a sea of mostly soft, pink, squishy human children, would always chaff at those with thin skin and prejudice.
In the Creche, Maul had been singled out as 'other' by many from the get-go.
His horns were strange, his Nightbrother tattoos stranger, and his sour disposition, against such happiness and light other Force sensitive children exuded, possibly the most strangest of all.
Yet, he had made do.
Maul did not need friends. Well-
Perhaps one, but that was not entirely made by his own choice.
Particularly when, one day, that infuriating Kenobi had appeared out of left field, with an exceedingly aggravating smile and a chirpy little 'Hello there!' beside his own Master Qui-Gon, a friend of Maul's own Master Windu.
Maul had not been able to shake off the other Alpha since. Maybe, just maybe, after all these years he had stopped trying to so hard.
A Jedi knew a doomed battle when he was in one, and when it came to a battle of wills against Obi-Wan Kenobi one was always doomed.
Imaginably that was why, two weeks out from his Rut, a Rut that was gearing up to be a… Arduous one given his recent fascination with the Beta Lady Po-
Cool, quiet, calm. Like an ocean at peace. No ripples, just serene, blue waters. Remember what Master Windu taught you. Cool, quiet, calm.
Maul had taken Kenobi's advice and seen Master Plo Koon for Matching.
It was something he had never done before, all too glad to lock himself away in the bottom chambers of the Temple specifically built for such occasions, for the weeklong isolation and sweat out any lingering desire that simmered inside.
Oddly, it was less messy that way, without Bonding and Nests and Scenting and Claiming and all the chaos mating brought.
Simple and rational.
He might end up missing a horn or two, friction burn on his palm and some nasty gashes across his chest from fighting to get out, and other things Maul would never speak on, but those would heal in time, desperation would wane, and any memory of an unfulfilled Rut could be, not forgotten, the boiling want and ache that came with a Rut was tough to forget, but perhaps pushed back and locked away somewhere deep in his psyche never to see daylight again.
Nevertheless, that, unfortunately, would not work this time.
An Alpha in Rut was dangerous, not only to themselves but to those around them, typically other competing Alpha's in the general vicinity, and while they did not suffer the possibility of death as Omega's did in a First Heat, an Alpha in a Rut who had… Let him say, a pull to another who, principally to one that was not biologically designed to survive a Rut, such as a Beta, a Beta with pretty green eyes the colour of meadows and-
Cool, quiet, calm.
They could hurt themselves severely trying to get to where the desire… led, and whilst any self-respecting Alpha would never force themselves upon an individual, and although their pheromones did not work on Beta's and would only offer an Omega a glimpse of the compatibility of the Alpha preening and presenting for their attention, it was best, for everyone's dignity involved, for Maul to find another… Outlet.
Before he utterly humiliated himself in front of the Representative of-
Two hours later, Maul left Master Plo Koon's chambers with a grim sort of grit in the bottom of his belly.
He had finished the physical, but had left before Master Plo Koon could read his Force.
Matching was not something to take lightly, casually, or carelessly. Though the choice to be Bonded would always fall to the individual, there was something inherently… Intense in discovering the identity of the person the Force, your biology, and your disposition deemed 'perfectly attuned'.
Now add in the possibility of matching with an Omega, a rarity given their incredible sparsity, and they being matched to another two Alpha's you would have to build a Nest around, and the math began to hurt.
Chiefly when you could hardly go through the day without thinking of sunlight glinting off hair the same shade as your home-worlds heavens, the golden hue of a freckled shoulder rising a lightsaber above just as Palpatine-
Calm.
Maul was desperate, and had been since that woman had breezed into the Temple not six cycles ago like a force of nature made flesh, flushed cheeked and sharp eyed, dimpled in her smile, talking about Sith Lords and arrests and 'Force-fuckers' as she called the Jedi.
Maul, being the only Master present at the Temple at the time, had offered aid in her attempt.
There had been no… Pull then, not at that moment, or that is what he resolutely told himself.
Yes, she had been lovely, in the way sunsets and sunrises and things that burned were lovely, but scentless as she was, as most Beta's were, as distracting as discovering the Chancellor of the Republic was the Sith Lord that had stolen your brother Savage and trained him into an Assassin and had been orchestrating the Separatist war behind the scenes for nearly two decades, and he had no true time to think much more than do.
No, Maul had only been ruined the moment he saw her fight.
Graceful, lithe, she had moved like water-
Like dancing.
She had fought as if she were dancing. Swift, sharp, fatal. She had a poise as charming as it was lethal, and the moment Maul had witnessed it he had been wrecked.
There was something hungry there, inside him, Maul had thought. Starving, a deep voracious gnawing hunger in the swells of his chest and-
Calm!
Maul was desperate, and desperate men did desperate things, such as taking Obi-Wan Kenobi's advice, and hoping that whatever madness that had taken root within him would be… Ousted in the next Rut.
Only, by the time he was sat upon the cushions after his physical, readying for the Matching, where his Force would be read and analysed and picked apart to peek at his core, he had-
Gotten up and left.
Not run.
Maul did not run, but he had left with a rather brisk pace.
It had felt… Wrong, sitting there readying to Match when he could remember exactly how bright a lightsabers beam had reflected in those green eyes, and how it had made his glands throb-
So very, extraordinarily wrong.
Maul had clearly gone mad.
Madness by the name of Lady Potter who, just as Maul came slinking out Master Plo Koon's office after his hastily aborted Matching, door clipping shut behind him, came around the corridor turn, flushed, sweaty and-
What appeared to be a wooden club clasped in her hand.
She stalled at the very sight of him down the hall, and there was a moment, a flash as one of her booted feet slid back as if she were debating turning tail and running, that Maul had the strange urge to reach out for her, to offer his hand, the marked skin of the gland at his wrist and-
Force-forbid, calm!
An urge he decisively stomped down on by bracing his hands, and thus his scenting glands, safely, and primly, behind his back, as she too seemingly tramped down on her own desire to flee and braced her feet hip wide apart, planting herself firmly.
"Lady Potter."
He bowed his head in greeting, hoping the movement hid the bob of his throat when he swallowed deeply, voice rough around its edges.
That was the Rut, he told himself, too close to the surface to be ignored. Not at all to do with the contradictory, impossibly bright, creature before him.
"All is well, I hope?"
She blustered, cheeks fanning pink, green-green gaze flicking to the office behind him.
If the Force were on his side, she would not know what that office was for.
"Well? Of course all is well! Why wouldn't it be?"
The question came out accusatorily, nearly squeaky, and Maul could only pointedly glance down to the long wooden pole in her hand clutched tightly.
She too followed his gaze and-
Dropped the bat at her feet promptly, laughing, perhaps, too clearly, too brightly, too strongly.
"Oh, that, right… Found it in the hall and I was just… Returning it."
Maul cocked a brow, the black ink of his tattoo's pitching high, and he watched as the woman followed the slope.
She winced as she caught herself doing so.
"You found a stick in the hall and believed it belonged to Master Plo Koon? And you thought this to be important enough to come all the way over from the Wizarding residency suite in the Senate to return it?"
A flicker of her eyes, an aborted attempt at not looking backwards, Maul thought, to not look for an escape route.
Was he so terrible that the mere sight of him standing here was enough to cause such discomfort?
Lady Potter's mouth opened, closed, opened again and whatever she were about to say was lost to the sound of the door behind Maul opening.
Master Plo Koon came stepping out into the hallway, holo-padd open and ready in his hand, stumbling to a stop when he nearly bumped into Maul still by the door.
"Master Maul, what are you still doing here? Was there something else you wished to discuss about your Matching?"
Calm?
Immediately, Maul's gaze bolted to the last inhabitant of the corridor. Lady Potter stood stock still, appearing as if she were caught in a Bantha trap.
If she did not know what the rooms behind him were for, Maul thought, she quite clearly knew what 'Matching' was.
Master Plo Koon outwardly followed Maul's gaze, and brightened at the sight of a visibly stunned Wielder.
"Ah, Lady Potter, just the person I was coming to see. The equipment for Omega Matching is in the chambers of the top floor. We keep it separated as it's not often in use. If you would like to follow me-… You are here about the application you sent, are you not?"
Maul felt his face rinse blank with disorientation, like the gears of his astute mind could not quite turn fast enough to take in the information his ears had just plucked from the mouth of Master Plo Koon, the word hanging heavy in the cramped space of the pressing in walls.
Omega?
That was not right, was it?
Omega's had scents, thick fragrances, aromas that bloomed and seeped and flourished, and the only way an Omega could be mistaken for anything but was-
Oh.
Betas had smells too, didn't they? Lesser than their overbearing Alpha and Omega brethren, frequently distilled things like soap and bleach and moribund water, plain odours that were meant to be unobtrusive and unnoticed, and often thought scentless if one didn't have the nose to sniff it out.
Alphas could be scentless sometimes, if they bathed themselves in enough blockers, useful when on negotiations in need of a gentle touch without the influence of pheromones, but even then there was always a whiff of something lurking beneath the white-wash.
An Omega could stifle their scent completely with enough suppressant.
Lady Potter frantically shook her head.
"No!"
And backtracked wildly.
"I mean yes, technically I am here about that, but-"
Master Plo Koon frowned deeply.
"A mistake perhaps? If you wish to revise you designation classification I can update-"
Her voice pitched to something shattered.
"Yes! I mean no! I-… Theoretically I am an Omega-"
Master Plo Koon's head tilted curiously.
"Theoretically? I am unsure how one could be theoretically-"
Lady Potter recanted, glancing towards her back.
She was definitely planning on running.
"I mean I was born an Omega, yes, but I-… Shit. Uh-… You know what? I'll meet you up there!"
Of which she did, finally, run, twisting on her heel and barely keeping her pace to below a jog, she dipped back the way she came, disappearing down the left.
"Lady Potter! It is the other way! Up the stairs, not down!"
A flash of fire darting back the other way.
Maul swore he could hear a hissed fuck as the woman changed course.
"Right! Yes!"
And she was gone as fast as she had come, and Maul's cogs were still sparking, choked.
"Strange people those Wielders, yes?"
Evidently, Master Plo Koon did not expect a response to his rhetorical question, instead beginning to head the way Lady Potter had escaped.
Maul found his tongue, and his hands, and something else entirely as his limb shot out, grasping the other Master by his elbow, impeding his departure.
"Master Plo Koon?"
The elder Jedi peered over at him bottomlessly.
"Perhaps I am interested in the Matching after all."
Updates: I'm planning to publish updates for this fic on Mondays, so instead of waiting a whole week until next Monday rolled around, I decided to post this one now and keep the gap between last one and this short rather than long.
A.N: Anakin's P.O.V is up next, and let's just say he's... Anakin, so a complete disaster lmao. Harry Potter in canon has the social aptitude of a potato, oblivious as he is foot-in-mouth, and this is something I like to keep/highlight for comedic purposes in my fics.
I hope you guys liked this instalment, and are looking forward to the next one! It's going to start getting juicy, and only gets worse as we go on lol. Once more, thank you for the follows, favourites, and reviews. If you have a spare moment, don't forget to drop a few words in that box over there and hit send. Me and the muses love hearing from you all. Until next time, stay safe!