A/N: Sorry, "Someone." I got your review, like, WAY after I put the sixth
chapter up; but yes, I did base some of the characters off of Morrowind,
like the Khajiit, and Queen Shegorad. I just couldn't find cool enough
names for them. I'll put a disclaimer up for that, too.
DISCLAIMER(S): Under no circumstances do I own The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, nor Star Wars. I'm just playing with Bethesda's and Lucas's toys, but I promise I won't dirty them, break them, or leave them out in the rain.
Chapter Seven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No combined words could describe what she was seeing in front of her. Nothing. The one Darth Maul had strode on was just the first out of hundreds- maybe thousands of decaying, rotting carcasses strewn about the room like worthless vermin. It sickened her, and tickled her mind to see young children, even newborn babies ariled along with their parents, almost as if an entire race had been wiped out in a matter of moments. Some of the bodies were flaccid, and others were bloated, meaning that this had happened sometime within the last year or two.
Anamaria looked down at the face of one poor soul, whose dead eyes stared at everything, but saw nothing. His flesh was a sickly purple, obviously incorporating the fact that he had died of some strange plague. Of course, as she looked around the vast expansions of crypt, ALL of the dead seemed to have purple skin. What if it was still contagious?
Immediately, she whirled around to face her dark comrade, fearing already what kind of state she would find him in.
Darth Maul, however, was still propped up against the wall, though his breathing had become deathly shallow, and his multi-colored face was soaked with sweat. Stripped demon eyes stared at the wall opposite of him, lost in another part of the expansive galaxy as he pondered memories long forgotten to time.
Everything... everything crashed down on him in a single heartbeat. Retention, and sin flooded his weakened mind, churning in the primordial soup of irony over and over again through his brain. Swirling, cascading, spinning, falling. Fading, breathing, but drawing no breath. Dancing, but without music. Everything.
Memory.
Oh, Lord... the medicine was wearing off. He broke the stilled silence to look at his haggard body. On his stomach, the skin slowly tore apart, forming a heavy gash that had been inconspicuously hidden just a few moments ago. Smaller slashes also began to refocus, the just perfectly healed flesh ripping apart as easily as one could tear a wet piece of paper in half. Knowing their time was short, Maul stood up on his buckling legs, and grabbed Anamaria's wrist again, reversing their direction down into another tunnel. She didn't seem to mind the exeunt of their previous encounter with a mass of rotting carcasses, and was all-the-more eager to run down a slightly less reeking vestibule; however, she DID notice her guide's wounds reforming, and became concerned at this.
"You... you took yarrow... didn't you...?" She breathed apprehensively, finally realizing the truth. Yarrow. A small, gray and concentrated flower with red thorns native only to Tattooine. When consumed, it had the remarkable ability to, for a limited amount of time, heal all anomalies of its devourer. But the flower was rare, and outlawed. Why? Because a side affect of its divine powers was a horrible sickness, which, by its artificer was called Perchance To Die. The victim would suffer dreadfully from severe dehydration, and constant, excruciating pain caused by pent-up nerve endings. Rarely did marks of this sickness survive, not because of actually DYING from the disease, but by committing suicide after long, awful hours of suffering unremittingly.
Maul snorted. Did she take him for a fool? Of course he had used yarrow! But not in the way that she would have expected. He had actually (knowing full-well the consequences of consuming the flower) ground it into a paste, and rubbed it over his numerous wounds, thereby able to reap the benefits of its healing powers, but avoiding their disastrous consequences.
"Of course I took the damn plant, wench..." He growled, "But, much to your dismay, I'm not going to drop dead in front of you..."
They were back between the crossroads leading into different hallways. Anamaria whirled around in front of him so that she was level with his neck, hurt quite viable in her blue eyes.
"'Much to my dismay?'" She repeated, "I never wanted any harm to come to you! I saw in your eyes what Raphael was doing, and-"
"AND WHAT?!" He shrieked, the anger too much now, "YOU THINK THAT IT'S ALL A GAME?! DO YOU THINK I ENJOYED BEING MOLESTED EVERY SINGLE NIGHT AS IF I WERE HIS BITCH?! DO YOU THINK I LIKED TO HAVE BRAINWASHED CATS TORTURE ME FOR HOURS ON END?! DO YOU, WENCH?! DO YOU LIKE TO SEE A GODFORSAKEN SITH SUFFERING AS HE SHOULD?! DO YOU?!?!"
Anamaria's brows slanted with sorrow, and she stared directly into his broken eyes. Oh, how she wished to pity him, but the young padawan knew it was impossible.
"No..." She said softly, "I don't... I hated to see you in there, hurt and sick... I thought I shamed you, but now I know... I know what to think, and what to say. Don't think that just because you don't know how to care for someone, that they won't return that care... Because it suddenly dawned on me, too."
Out of her line of vision, a heavy shadow moved in the darkness.
"All of my life, I have learned nothing but to distrust. No one could understand me, and I refused to teach them. But now... now I am standing before the one man who knows. He knows the ache of loneliness... He knows how it feels to yearn for someone to love, and love in return."
A glint of silver reflected off of the torchlight.
"Don't you see, Darth Maul? I care for you. Your lonely is my lonely, and my lonely is your lonely. I don't worry about the fact that you won't care for me, as I do you, but I'm going to help you no matter what you say. I just want to know the answer to one question."
Black eyes slitted in the shadows.
"Do you care for me?"
The Sith stared down at her, his body aching again with the reforming wounds, and his beautifully horrifying face rivaling with concern. Her speech had caught him off guard, and he was unable to answer her question. Hadn't she stayed with him all those terrible nights when Raphael had raped him, and tortured him? Didn't she comfort him as no one else had ever comforted him before? Why was he even here? Risking his very life to save hers?
"I..."
The silver flashed.
But she was a Jedi! An artless, base-court clotpole! (A/N: hehe) Not to mention his greatest enemy! She was the very race that had destroyed his life, consumed his only family. And here he was, thinking that he CARED for her?
Never.
But... then again... no one had cared for HIM either...
"I... I..."
Suddenly, the danger hit him like an oversized sack of lead. He whirled around to defend himself, but it was too late.
Anamaria gasped as Raphael careened out of the shadows, a silver knife in hand, and slammed into the injured Sith, pinning him to the ground. He was laughing insanely, his black eyes glittering with madness, and Darth Maul was unable to move under the carnassial pressure of the Prince's forcefelt body.
The padawan, suddenly realizing where this was going, lunged forward, and attempted to fight off Raphael with her own bare hands. He, however, had known this, and slammed a sizeable amount of his power right smack into her chest. Anamaria could only let a startled gasp as she flew backwards into the nearest wall, crumpling to the floor in an unconscious heap.
The insane prince grinned maniacally at his work, then turned back to his weakened prey. Bringing the silver knife to his lips, he ran a fleshy tongue over the blade, that mad glint ever-present in his bottomless eyes. He lowered the vane down, and against the Sith's unscathed neck, where he proceeded to draw blood with a small cut.
"Ring around the Rosy, a pocketful of posies; ashes, ashes we all fall down..." He sang insanely, then licked the blade again, along with all its contents.
"Oh dear, dear me..." He began again, "I had no intention of letting you find that little room, but it seems as though you've found it out!" Here, he smiled madly, baring his perfect teeth, "Memories are such a bother, aren't they, Sith? Revealing themselves at the least inconvenient time..." He fingered the blade, "My father had every intention of killing you that day three years ago, and indeed, he believed he had... but now it seems as though that rotten bitch mother of yours sent you away with a so-called... Palpatine..."
Darth Maul's eyes widened to a breaking level. That was impossible! He had lived as a slave until his master found him!
"Ah, yes... I see what you mean, Sith..." Raphael chided, still fingering the knife, "You didn't seriously think that all of those unlucky fechers in that room back there were just magically transported, did you? Think about it..."
Maul, still staring wide-eyed at his captor, proceeded to dig deep within his mind for a memory. Indeed, he did see something. A vague image of what seemed to be a woman. With freckled yellow eyes, and ebony skin...
A plague... someone dead at his feet... no, wait... not dead... bowing?
"Kalaskein! Kalaskein!" He cried, and tried to kiss his feet. But that same woman from before... she grabbed him, and they started to whizz through the same streets he had come upon this planet from. Dead bodies littered the path, bloated and... purple...? They came to a stop before a man, hidden by a shadowed cowl. The woman pushed Maul forward, and she seemed to be... pleading... to the dark man.
Finally, he nodded, and grabbed him by his wrist, shoving him into a chrome space cruiser, and then there was darkness.
Darth Maul snapped back into reality as the dagger plunged into the floor just millimeters away from his neck. Raphael was breathing heavily, and his black hair veiled that pale face.
"Kalaskein..." He sing-songed, "Kalaskein, the God... Kalaskein, the opposer... Kalaskein, who will lead his people to freedom!" Now he seemed intensely furious as he ripped the knife from its place, "Kalaskein... will never speak of this again..." His eyes were mad, and his smile just as. He lowered his weapon against the Sith's neck, mocking his power, and sang again as his blade slowly pressed into his prisoner's flesh.
"Ashes... ashes... we all fall down..."
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
A/N: I'll have a McNasty with fries, please.
DISCLAIMER(S): Under no circumstances do I own The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, nor Star Wars. I'm just playing with Bethesda's and Lucas's toys, but I promise I won't dirty them, break them, or leave them out in the rain.
Chapter Seven
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No combined words could describe what she was seeing in front of her. Nothing. The one Darth Maul had strode on was just the first out of hundreds- maybe thousands of decaying, rotting carcasses strewn about the room like worthless vermin. It sickened her, and tickled her mind to see young children, even newborn babies ariled along with their parents, almost as if an entire race had been wiped out in a matter of moments. Some of the bodies were flaccid, and others were bloated, meaning that this had happened sometime within the last year or two.
Anamaria looked down at the face of one poor soul, whose dead eyes stared at everything, but saw nothing. His flesh was a sickly purple, obviously incorporating the fact that he had died of some strange plague. Of course, as she looked around the vast expansions of crypt, ALL of the dead seemed to have purple skin. What if it was still contagious?
Immediately, she whirled around to face her dark comrade, fearing already what kind of state she would find him in.
Darth Maul, however, was still propped up against the wall, though his breathing had become deathly shallow, and his multi-colored face was soaked with sweat. Stripped demon eyes stared at the wall opposite of him, lost in another part of the expansive galaxy as he pondered memories long forgotten to time.
Everything... everything crashed down on him in a single heartbeat. Retention, and sin flooded his weakened mind, churning in the primordial soup of irony over and over again through his brain. Swirling, cascading, spinning, falling. Fading, breathing, but drawing no breath. Dancing, but without music. Everything.
Memory.
Oh, Lord... the medicine was wearing off. He broke the stilled silence to look at his haggard body. On his stomach, the skin slowly tore apart, forming a heavy gash that had been inconspicuously hidden just a few moments ago. Smaller slashes also began to refocus, the just perfectly healed flesh ripping apart as easily as one could tear a wet piece of paper in half. Knowing their time was short, Maul stood up on his buckling legs, and grabbed Anamaria's wrist again, reversing their direction down into another tunnel. She didn't seem to mind the exeunt of their previous encounter with a mass of rotting carcasses, and was all-the-more eager to run down a slightly less reeking vestibule; however, she DID notice her guide's wounds reforming, and became concerned at this.
"You... you took yarrow... didn't you...?" She breathed apprehensively, finally realizing the truth. Yarrow. A small, gray and concentrated flower with red thorns native only to Tattooine. When consumed, it had the remarkable ability to, for a limited amount of time, heal all anomalies of its devourer. But the flower was rare, and outlawed. Why? Because a side affect of its divine powers was a horrible sickness, which, by its artificer was called Perchance To Die. The victim would suffer dreadfully from severe dehydration, and constant, excruciating pain caused by pent-up nerve endings. Rarely did marks of this sickness survive, not because of actually DYING from the disease, but by committing suicide after long, awful hours of suffering unremittingly.
Maul snorted. Did she take him for a fool? Of course he had used yarrow! But not in the way that she would have expected. He had actually (knowing full-well the consequences of consuming the flower) ground it into a paste, and rubbed it over his numerous wounds, thereby able to reap the benefits of its healing powers, but avoiding their disastrous consequences.
"Of course I took the damn plant, wench..." He growled, "But, much to your dismay, I'm not going to drop dead in front of you..."
They were back between the crossroads leading into different hallways. Anamaria whirled around in front of him so that she was level with his neck, hurt quite viable in her blue eyes.
"'Much to my dismay?'" She repeated, "I never wanted any harm to come to you! I saw in your eyes what Raphael was doing, and-"
"AND WHAT?!" He shrieked, the anger too much now, "YOU THINK THAT IT'S ALL A GAME?! DO YOU THINK I ENJOYED BEING MOLESTED EVERY SINGLE NIGHT AS IF I WERE HIS BITCH?! DO YOU THINK I LIKED TO HAVE BRAINWASHED CATS TORTURE ME FOR HOURS ON END?! DO YOU, WENCH?! DO YOU LIKE TO SEE A GODFORSAKEN SITH SUFFERING AS HE SHOULD?! DO YOU?!?!"
Anamaria's brows slanted with sorrow, and she stared directly into his broken eyes. Oh, how she wished to pity him, but the young padawan knew it was impossible.
"No..." She said softly, "I don't... I hated to see you in there, hurt and sick... I thought I shamed you, but now I know... I know what to think, and what to say. Don't think that just because you don't know how to care for someone, that they won't return that care... Because it suddenly dawned on me, too."
Out of her line of vision, a heavy shadow moved in the darkness.
"All of my life, I have learned nothing but to distrust. No one could understand me, and I refused to teach them. But now... now I am standing before the one man who knows. He knows the ache of loneliness... He knows how it feels to yearn for someone to love, and love in return."
A glint of silver reflected off of the torchlight.
"Don't you see, Darth Maul? I care for you. Your lonely is my lonely, and my lonely is your lonely. I don't worry about the fact that you won't care for me, as I do you, but I'm going to help you no matter what you say. I just want to know the answer to one question."
Black eyes slitted in the shadows.
"Do you care for me?"
The Sith stared down at her, his body aching again with the reforming wounds, and his beautifully horrifying face rivaling with concern. Her speech had caught him off guard, and he was unable to answer her question. Hadn't she stayed with him all those terrible nights when Raphael had raped him, and tortured him? Didn't she comfort him as no one else had ever comforted him before? Why was he even here? Risking his very life to save hers?
"I..."
The silver flashed.
But she was a Jedi! An artless, base-court clotpole! (A/N: hehe) Not to mention his greatest enemy! She was the very race that had destroyed his life, consumed his only family. And here he was, thinking that he CARED for her?
Never.
But... then again... no one had cared for HIM either...
"I... I..."
Suddenly, the danger hit him like an oversized sack of lead. He whirled around to defend himself, but it was too late.
Anamaria gasped as Raphael careened out of the shadows, a silver knife in hand, and slammed into the injured Sith, pinning him to the ground. He was laughing insanely, his black eyes glittering with madness, and Darth Maul was unable to move under the carnassial pressure of the Prince's forcefelt body.
The padawan, suddenly realizing where this was going, lunged forward, and attempted to fight off Raphael with her own bare hands. He, however, had known this, and slammed a sizeable amount of his power right smack into her chest. Anamaria could only let a startled gasp as she flew backwards into the nearest wall, crumpling to the floor in an unconscious heap.
The insane prince grinned maniacally at his work, then turned back to his weakened prey. Bringing the silver knife to his lips, he ran a fleshy tongue over the blade, that mad glint ever-present in his bottomless eyes. He lowered the vane down, and against the Sith's unscathed neck, where he proceeded to draw blood with a small cut.
"Ring around the Rosy, a pocketful of posies; ashes, ashes we all fall down..." He sang insanely, then licked the blade again, along with all its contents.
"Oh dear, dear me..." He began again, "I had no intention of letting you find that little room, but it seems as though you've found it out!" Here, he smiled madly, baring his perfect teeth, "Memories are such a bother, aren't they, Sith? Revealing themselves at the least inconvenient time..." He fingered the blade, "My father had every intention of killing you that day three years ago, and indeed, he believed he had... but now it seems as though that rotten bitch mother of yours sent you away with a so-called... Palpatine..."
Darth Maul's eyes widened to a breaking level. That was impossible! He had lived as a slave until his master found him!
"Ah, yes... I see what you mean, Sith..." Raphael chided, still fingering the knife, "You didn't seriously think that all of those unlucky fechers in that room back there were just magically transported, did you? Think about it..."
Maul, still staring wide-eyed at his captor, proceeded to dig deep within his mind for a memory. Indeed, he did see something. A vague image of what seemed to be a woman. With freckled yellow eyes, and ebony skin...
A plague... someone dead at his feet... no, wait... not dead... bowing?
"Kalaskein! Kalaskein!" He cried, and tried to kiss his feet. But that same woman from before... she grabbed him, and they started to whizz through the same streets he had come upon this planet from. Dead bodies littered the path, bloated and... purple...? They came to a stop before a man, hidden by a shadowed cowl. The woman pushed Maul forward, and she seemed to be... pleading... to the dark man.
Finally, he nodded, and grabbed him by his wrist, shoving him into a chrome space cruiser, and then there was darkness.
Darth Maul snapped back into reality as the dagger plunged into the floor just millimeters away from his neck. Raphael was breathing heavily, and his black hair veiled that pale face.
"Kalaskein..." He sing-songed, "Kalaskein, the God... Kalaskein, the opposer... Kalaskein, who will lead his people to freedom!" Now he seemed intensely furious as he ripped the knife from its place, "Kalaskein... will never speak of this again..." His eyes were mad, and his smile just as. He lowered his weapon against the Sith's neck, mocking his power, and sang again as his blade slowly pressed into his prisoner's flesh.
"Ashes... ashes... we all fall down..."
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
A/N: I'll have a McNasty with fries, please.