Obdurate Heart – IV

Thanks for reviewing, of course. I apologize that this chapter's so short; I promise they get to be rather long at a point.

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for."

-John Lubbock

"He's been stable now for a good ten hours."

Obi Wan nodded in reply to the guard that greeted him outside the chambers holding his current priority. Much of the medical bay had been destroyed, and therefore Maul had been moved to a quarters far more unusual than an average bay. It was a small, personal holding—a civilian enclosure on the grounds. Though it might have seemed something of an undeserved luxury for a convict, it was easily guarded and in plain view of all things should an escape have been attempted. "How many guards are posted?"

"Myself and ten others. Four at the back entrance, four at the front, and my post is inside along with the eleventh of us."

"Double that." Obi Wan ordered, and the guard hesitated, but agreed without question. "And he has not awakened?"

"No, and I wouldn't imagine so."

"Is he bound?"

"If he should leave his bedding at any time, an alarm will sound. Sensory barriers are all around."

Obi Wan thought about this a moment, but quickly shook off any unnecessary brooding that might pull him away from his task. "Alright then, I'll have a look at him…" Though he felt that a perverse statement. As though Maul were some prized trophy to be looked upon. He was not. He was a criminal and a scourge, and nothing that should be looked upon with anything but contempt. The guard led him quickly into the room and motioned towards the bed on which their incapacitated captive lay unconscious.

Obi Wan swallowed a bit as he observed the layout. Maul was unclothed save for the sheet over his waist and lay utterly motionless before him. He suddenly felt a little uneasy. He had expected to meet the image of a disheveled and weakened Maul, a previously imposing figure that was cut down and revealed as the mere man it was, only to have been greeted with the sight of an intact warrior that looked as though he were about to leap up at any moment. Even in a comatose state, he was an ominous thing to behold. Obi Wan was almost appalled.

However, he shoved away his petty discomfort as quickly as it came, refusing to be so wary of this clearly debilitated man. Maul was well muscled, he was sharp-toothed, he was adorned with ebony tattoos over the expanse of his blood-colored flesh and crowned with that row of deadly looking spikes, yes, but these were all images and nothing more. Guises to make him appear more than what he was, that was all. Obi Wan knew this. And yet, the intimidation he felt was somehow beyond that external imagery…he certainly didn't want to think about that at the moment.

"It's humbling to see such a fearsome beast brought down to such feeble terms, is it not?" uttered the guard in good humor.

"Quite." Obi Wan lied, clearing his throat and pondering as he observed the shallowly breathing creature. Darth Maul. Sith apprentice. Renowned; infamous, even, and just now was Obi Wan beginning to contemplate him. They had spent much time tracking and fighting against this revered combatant, but they knew relatively nothing of him. Only his affiliation, really, aside from his species. Perhaps that was for the better. He was of a poisonous breed in wanting of extermination—that of a mechanical Sith pawn. To try and think of him as anything but would only cause problems. Obi Wan released a sigh of discontent, wondering how much easier it could have been if he had simply killed him.

"…maybe you'll see now…"

Obi Wan rubbed his chin with the side of his finger and gnawed on the tip of his tongue a little, far from having forgotten the exchange between himself and this opponent during their fight. He was not even sure that he had heard his enemy properly, slurred as it had been, but he supposed if it had not been that, then what? And why? A sardonic quip from the back of his mind suggested that Maul had simply given him some enigma that could not be answered by any other, therefore giving himself a reason to be allowed to live so that the riddle might be solved. A more reasoning part of him told that, in his perceived dying moment, he had been delusional, and could have sputtered whatever clipped thought raced across his brain at that instant. The philosopher of him, however, wondered if perhaps there was more meaning behind those puzzling words, or at least that Maul himself thought there was.

Obi Wan quickly sneered to himself, eyes scanning dutifully over his prisoner before he quickly turned away. Whatever the case, it did not matter. He did not require to know the personal musings of a corrupted, evil soul. "When was it expected he would come out of this?" he asked the guard, feeling an urge of impatience without explanation.

"That remains unknown. The medic decreed a rough estimation between twelve hours and a day or more." The guard replied.

"It couldn't be longer than that…" Obi Wan said, glancing back at Maul. "…If it is said that he will awaken in no less than twelve, I don't doubt that in six there will be a threat of it."

"You place that much faith in his skills?" asked the guard after him in slight surprise as Obi Wan turned away.

"No," the young Padawan answered. "It's just that I've come to rather expect the worst of things."