Obdurate Heart - XIII

Well. Fabulous. Just when I thought I'd have free time to write a story, I get tied down with all this crap. Updates might be slower. Thanks for sticking. May be the longest chapter yet.

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.

-Henry Ward Beecher

Obi Wan had perhaps spent an hour or two of actual sleep the past night, sick with his own shame as he had been. It appalled him how he had managed to lose his temper like a spoiled child, especially in front of an enemy who thrived off of and preyed upon instability. That coupled with the terms upon which he had left and he wasn't sure he had a shred of common Jedi decency left within him. His night was riddled with sleepless ponders and regrets, and it left him with a very early, exhausted morning.

He exhaled deeply as he sat down with a cup of tea, recounting the event in his head for the umpteenth time since he had risen from his mock slumber. He wondered if he should confide in Qui Gon about this, but then the humiliation of reporting the incident was something he would avoid if possible. Not that he would refrain from honesty if questioned, but it wasn't something he was about to go running his mouth off about. The guilt of his emotional weakness was eating at him as it was. He had promised himself that he would look in on his prisoner at least once every day, but he was certain that he had lost a great edge over Maul in their prior quarrel. Facing him today would be awkward to say the least.

But why had he let himself fall into such a frivolous dispute? Of course Maul was an infuriating beast, but he had spent all the years of his life training as a man who was above petty squabbling. Was that not enough? He had heard the argument Maul presented numerous times. He supposed the only real difference was that those questions were more eloquently worded, and directed towards he himself.

He knew that he should take care to be knightly. He would simply have to be better at keeping his feelings in check, and remaining neutral in his conversations with his Sith captive, as offensive as they might become. He decided eventually that the stress over the previous night was something he could not deal with all day, and so, early as it was, he left his quarters in search of the makeshift prison chamber once more. The sun was only just beginning to rise, casting a dim golden light over rounded rooftops and off of the even paths beneath him to mark his way. The world went on around him in a peaceful slur, and he delved into his mind to find harmony within it. He was at least reasonably at peace by the time he reached his destination. The guards were just changing shift.

"Good morning sir." Greeted one amicably as he approached, and Obi Wan nodded in return.

"How is everything this morning?" he questioned, though he wasn't sure if he was really checking up or if he was merely stalling.

"No change in the situation." The guard informed. "The prisoner is awake now. He should be at his first meal as we speak."

"I think I'll see him." Obi Wan said, but hesitated as though somehow he was awaiting protest. Realizing that as rather silly, he bypassed the huddle of departing and arriving guards to enter the chamber alone.

Maul was sitting up on his bed, gnawing apathetically at a corner of toast and rubbing his wounded side a little in blind examination. His venomous eyes caught Obi Wan quickly, growing hot and warning for this most unwelcome presence. Obi Wan felt the circumstances of this scene all too repetitive. He stopped a few feet from the door and merely nodded to the prisoner in greeting, allowing him to be the first to speak, if he would.

Maul tossed what he was eating lazily onto his tray, dropping his hands between his drawn up and splayed out knees as he eyed Obi Wan in apprehension. His impatience had relented, as he had indeed grown used to the Jedi's visits, but his wariness was unaltered. Apparently he was not going to be the first to comment on the situation, and Obi Wan thought it would be odd for them to just stare at one another this entire period.

"Hello." Obi Wan said flippantly, finding it funny that such a thing would sound so casual. He wasn't exactly sure what else to say.

Maul gave into a while of silence, but moved a bit as if considering words. "…I wasn't sure that you'd be back, really." He regarded with a familiar sneer.

"A fine caretaker I'd be if I stayed away." Obi Wan replied, without his usual prim and proper nature. Whether that was due to his wakeful night or his lack of specific tactic he was unsure. "I'd like to apologize for yesterday. I don't suspect you'll take to that kindly, but it must be said."

Maul clearly tensed at that, gritting his teeth and letting a silent sigh of exasperation fall from his chest. "And why must it be said?" he growled quietly in return.

"My integrity." Obi Wan shrugged a shoulder lightly. "The integrity of an order I do not wish to misrepresent." He suddenly felt as though that was being a bit too honest when considering he was speaking to a Sith Lord.

"Well I do not apologize." Maul countered unsurprisingly. "It is in the nature of our races to battle. We are predetermined adversaries. It is disrespectful to both our orders to be polite to one another."

Obi Wan creased his brow and stared at Maul in contemplation. For some reason, Qui Gon's comment about learning to take a joke resounded in his head. He could not figure if Maul was indeed jesting or if he truly believed something so nonsensical. "Then I suppose that's to say you don't forgive me." Obi Wan made a dull jab of his own.

That seemed to annoy Maul, but he said nothing in light of it. "When will your negotiators arrive?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know for certain." Obi Wan answered, taking a few steps closer. "When it is determined that you are in full health."

"Full health." Maul shook his head and chuckled darkly, but he made no protest. "And who is to determine this?"

Obi Wan made a long pause, looking down at the floor and opening his mouth to await an answer he was unsure of. "…I suppose…I am."

Maul narrowed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. That was surely not what he wanted to hear, but he must have at least considered it an option. "Don't think that means I'll be any kinder to you." He said with a sarcastic edge.

"I don't expect kindness at all." Obi Wan said truthfully.

"Don't you find expecting things to be awfully presumptuous?" Maul muttered with a short glare upwards.

"I'm sure I don't know." Was his reply. Maul was so inclined to opposing every statement he made, but by now he was certain it was only to annoy him into leaving. The mood between them had been strangely placated, however, as though they had fought one another out already.

"I'm sure you don't." Maul agreed. "You're nothing but a confused fool."

"I'm not." Obi Wan disagreed quite simply, and Maul did not press further on that issue, surprisingly. "Don't stop eating on my account." He implored, gesturing back towards the tray.

Maul shook his head. "Surely you know it's rather rude." He pointed out with a snort.

"I thought it was disrespectful to show a Jedi politeness." Obi Wan reminded.

Maul cocked his head to the side, his eyes still staring into Obi Wan's with exasperation. "Do you take everything so damned seriously?"

"There are certain matters that I don't take lightly. You are one of them."

"I don't see any reason why that should affect your general sense of humor." Maul grunted back, resting his elbows over his knees pensively.

"I don't really find anything about this situation humorous." Obi Wan looked around the room as though he was indeed looking for something to laugh at.

"Then you're too uptight." Maul dubbed, and Obi Wan couldn't help but feel that this had been said to him before. He did not want to be considered uptight, even if it was only a Sith that called him as much. "Why don't you sit, Jedi?" Maul suddenly suggested in an agitated grumble. "You look awkward enough without standing there like you've got a durasteel pipe in your backside."

Obi Wan resisted the urge to roll his eyes, reaching over towards the wall and dragging up a chair. He perched upon it warily, suddenly finding it very odd that he would even consider entertaining the request of his prisoner. It was customary to be ready at all times to anticipate an attack when dealing with such a volatile situation, and surely one would be more prone to action in a standing state than a sitting one. However, he was in fact already seated, and rising now would just portray him as foolish and indecisive. "How is the wound?" he asked.

"Stop asking." Maul hissed back.

Obi Wan shook his head. He did not know which reason Maul resented that question, but he could certainly list the possibilities. "Can you stand? Walk?" Obi Wan proceeded to query.

"I haven't ventured it." Maul sneered.

"You haven't even tried?" Obi Wan attempted to confirm.

"No." Maul repeated.

"Why not?" the young Jedi shrugged.

"You're incessant."

"It is my responsibility to know."

"If you're so concerned that it may be healing, why don't you just cut another?" Maul glowered over at him and aimed a hand towards his uninjured side. "I wouldn't walk then, would I?"

"Sarcasm doesn't help your state." Said Obi Wan unenthusiastically. He didn't think it wise to push the matter, however. He guessed the reason Maul hadn't tried to test himself on his legs was simply because it hurt, but that was something a proud Sith Lord was not about to admit.

Maul looked down at his hands flippantly, flexing his fingers and examining his cuticles. "Do you have nowhere else to be?" this question was still a growl, but it was the first time Obi Wan thought he heard more curiosity than animosity.

"I am here because this is m—"

"Your duty, yes, I know." Maul finished impatiently. "And it's your only duty?"

Obi Wan hesitated, thinking over what malice Maul might have been planning by learning certain details. When he could think of none, he answered, reluctantly. "For the moment, yes."

To Obi Wan's surprise, Maul made no mockery of that. He merely sat, eying the Jedi apprentice with a cattish, orange gaze. "Do you really think that by this point I'll be offering you any information?"

"I don't know." Obi Wan replied. "It isn't as though I'm asking you for it. I know the Sith well enough."

"As do I the Jedi. Enough to know that you won't quit your pestering so easily." Maul noted wryly.

Obi Wan continued on with an inquisitive gaze. "Persistence isn't really a trait to scorn, is it? I would think if nothing else, you could commend the Jedi for that."

"Hardly. Persistence towards lost causes is only a waste of time." Maul readjusted his position and shifted awkwardly away from his wounded side. "Whether it's your persistence to extract information, or to stop the Sith from their planning. It is all equally useless."

"The Sith will not prevail over the Jedi. That I can be sure of." Obi Wan said firmly.

"Oh mark my word, Jedi, the Sith will have their day." He declared ominously.

"Their day to do what, I wonder?" Obi Wan tossed up a hand.

"Prevail." Maul answered in a grunt, staring at Obi Wan as though he placed him as supremely stupid for asking as much.

Obi Wan let his shoulders slack just barely in disappointment. "The Jedi will never allow this to happen."

"The Jedi do not have a choice." Maul again shifted, letting one leg fall lax across the length of the bed. "You have been raised to believe that the Jedi are all powerful. You will one day learn that they are not."

"Were you not raised to believe that the Sith was an all powerful force?" Obi Wan pointed out. "If you claim me as a sufferer of my nurturing, are you not a victim as well?"

"I was raised enough to know that power does not derive from order and its maintenance. It manifests from chaos, and the ability to create it. But yes, we are victims of our environment. Were we but men, we may not hate one another as we do."

Obi Wan stalled for a long moment, one hand preoccupied with rubbing his mended wrist. "The Jedi do not hate."

"That's only foolish conjure. It sounds sweet on the tongue, doesn't it? Do you mean to tell me that you cannot hate?" Maul eyed down at Obi Wan's bothered wrist briefly.

"Yes. I cannot, and I do not." Obi Wan nodded.

Maul let an outward laugh escape him, leaning back slightly onto the sheets. "Then you aren't even human."

Obi Wan furrowed his brow and stared at Maul in an offended manner, shaking his head. "And what of some soulless being who thrives off of the suffering of others? Is that more natural? More honorable?"

Maul snorted and said nothing, meeting Obi Wan's eyes in silence.

"In any case, I think we can at least agree that neither of us are just men." Obi Wan was looking down now, idly examining his wrist as though intending to find something that was not obvious and thinking to himself. Clearly his quest for answers was going nowhere. He opened his mouth to say something further, but Maul beat him to the punch.

"We both like to think that we are more." Maul's tone was quiet. Obi Wan was shocked to hear the lack of fierceness in the Sith Lord's voice for once. He sounded quite normal without it.

Obi Wan slowly looked up, biting a lower lip for a moment before he almost timidly spoke. "May I ask you something?" he asked, hoping that his request would not be dismissed this time.

Maul glared purposefully at Obi Wan, seeming to be contemplating something. After a moment, he sighed with an annoyed roll of his eyes. "Don't give me two questions out of one. Ask what you want." Maul permitted, waving a hand.

Obi Wan was a bit surprised to be allowed to ask, sorting the words of his query in his head carefully. "…It is just….before," Obi Wan started up, clearing his throat a little. "When the two of us first met. When I struck you, you…said something to me." Obi Wan drew up his eyes to study his prisoner.

Maul was looking back at him with an expression that was at first blank and a tad irritated, but slowly transformed into inquisitive confusion.

Obi Wan swallowed deeply, wide blue eyes gazing out at him in a brooding way. "…just before you fell. You told me that…maybe I would see something."

When Maul moved to speak, Obi Wan was tempted to believe he was about to deny that he had said anything, but the dark Zabrak stilled suddenly, his mouth closing and his head tilting away. "And what of it?"

"What did you mean by it?" Obi Wan requested immediately, cursing himself for seeming so dense.

Maul blinked a few times and shook his head, letting one arm fall across his stomach. "What does that matter?"

"…I'm not sure…" Obi Wan muttered, almost to himself. He persisted, however, as he felt it appropriate to do given Maul's apparent expectations. "I only want to understand."

"It was never your intent to learn from a Sith." Maul returned offhandedly.

"They were your words. Were they another's, I'd be asking another." Obi Wan pressed.

Maul gave Obi Wan a long glance over, with eyes that seemed to waver between exasperation and something that more or less waned to defeat. He drew his legs back up and straightened himself out for a moment, rubbing his neck harshly with a quick palm and letting out a loud sigh. "…The Sith are not duller than the Jedi in senses. Emotion runs as clearly off of a body to us as it does to you."

Obi Wan waited, not quite seeing how that answered his question in the slightest.

"I am not blind, Jedi. In no sense am I so. I felt you very distinctly as you rushed headstrong into my fight." Maul clenched a hand as though holding a saber. "You were angry."

Obi Wan stilled, and sank a bit.

"It was rawness. You aimed at me with murder in your eyes, and I was more surprised for that than in considering your audacity to interrupt at all. I sensed in you things that I had never sensed in a Jedi before…" Maul ended with a quiet snort.

Obi Wan's tone belied his confusion, as well as his shame. "It was a mistake. One that should have easily been controlled, and shan't happen again." He didn't know if he was saying this for Maul's sake or his own, however.

Maul looked very irked by that statement. "You relied on a base, primal instinct…one that the Jedi abhor, because it admits a chaos in one's mind that they would pretend can—or should—be harnessed. …Do you want to know something, Jedi?" Maul gave a quiet, disgusted chuckle, and Obi Wan apprehensively awaited response. "…You made me falter. You actually made me stop, and search you, confounded as I was…I thought, for just a brief interlude, that there was hope yet for the mechanical Jedi pawn."

"What did you mean by those words, Maul?" Obi Wan could feel his heart make a strange, uncomfortable incline in pace. He was edgy enough as it was.

Maul let the moment stretch before continuing. "Had you not acted on your anger, you would have sat like a doting idiot and attempted to calculate how best to go about things, in which time, it would have been too late to save your pathetic master. You lashed out, you struck your enemy, and you had won. Not because you kept your calm, Jedi. Not because you took what you thought was the most noble course of action. You defeated your enemy because you acted upon an emotion…I thought perhaps you would see that. Even learn from it."

Obi Wan could only look on at him, at a loss for words and beginning to build up an argument in his mind against this, but unable to keep a balance before his thoughts collided and crumbled.

"But now I see that there isn't hope for you at all." Maul came back with a sneer. "You disappointed me gravely. All you profess to me about your victory is regret, and you make yourself undeserving of your triumph. You could have killed me and ended so much trouble…Instead, you reverted back to your cowardly little Jedi ways."

"…I've promised to honor the code of the Jedi. That incident…I would not allow it to ruin my honesty." Obi Wan shook his head quickly.

"You are a fool." Maul designated him once again, and Obi Wan was very much tired of hearing that.

Obi Wan reacted a bit suddenly, meeting his antagonist with a firm air. "Why am I a fool? Because I live my life with order? Because I do not allow every wayward emotion to govern my actions?"

"No." Maul commanded sternly, and Obi Wan obediently shrank into silence at the tone. Their conversation seemed to echo off of the walls around them, replaying in a dozen fragments. Maul's rigid bark died away among them, and his voice broke out again, soft and dark. "…You are a fool because you allow your life to be governed by rules, as opposed to your own heart."

Obi Wan took a small breath and blinked once, a sudden cold air enveloping him. The two eyes that stared upon him may as well have been a thousand, and his heavy robes may have been non-existent as oddly stripped as he felt. He didn't know what kind of confidence he had harbored with him upon stepping into this room, but all and any he might have had had been walked upon and kicked away. There was no longer enmity circling the room amongst them, but the strange uneasiness that had replaced it was much worse than Obi Wan would have predicted. The echoes were beginning to choke him. With what was either an attempted bow or a simple lurch forward, Obi Wan stood and calmly went to the exit, ignoring the curious stare that followed him.