Obdurate Heart – XVII
Thanks again very much to those of you who took the time to review, and those of you who have the patience to put up with the slowness of this boring-ass story in general. Really, it's nice of you. Thanks!
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place—and kill him."
- Mark Twain
"I don't suppose I'm going to be compensated for medical negligence." Maul uttered as he stared up at the ceiling.
Obi Wan watched on tense nerves as the medical droid removed the bandages on his prisoner's side, ready to intervene if tempers changed. "Consider it recompense for my master's shoulder." He replied in a caustic manner.
"So we're back to vengeance again, are we, Jedi? How amusing." Maul twitched as his wound was exposed and prodded.
"Vengeance? I was thinking more along the lines of jest, as that seems to be more your like." He turned up to address the droid unit. "Any problems to report on that?"
"None Sir." It responded.
Maul lay mostly without complaint to the affair, but Obi Wan wasn't sure whether he had much choice. Now that his clearheadedness had been regained, Maul was back to his usual temperamental state, and while Obi Wan was satisfied that recovery had been made, he was not at all looking forward to things returning to normal. Maul made much better company when unconscious, he had decided. "Thank you." He nodded to the droid as it finished redressing the injury.
"Will there be anything else, Sir? Shall I have another look at that arm?" it asked as it drew away from the bed.
Obi Wan grimaced in a humiliated fashion and refused to look at Maul. "No. It's no bother."
"Very well." The droid departed.
"Would you like something to eat?" Obi Wan offered. Granted, Maul's only choices were various awful-tasting mulches, but he felt it proper to be polite to someone who was not well.
"No." Came Maul's answer. "Go and eat yourself if you're so intent, you've been looming over my bed for days now. Go away."
Obi Wan ignored his request. "I am not your concern. I'll be where I please; perhaps you should focus on yourself."
"You are my concern." Maul argued.
Obi Wan looked up from rubbing his temples tiredly and quirked a brow.
"If I'm your concern, that makes you mine, doesn't it? Do you think I should ignore you? I'm not that naïve."
"What could I possibly want to do to you?" Obi Wan almost laughed. "Or are you afraid that I may trick you into speaking of something you don't wish to?"
"I'll tell you what I wish for you to know. You will receive nothing more." Maul countered rebelliously. "Do I need a reason other than your unremitting bother to want you to leave me?"
"You asked me before whether or not you were my sole responsibility—I said yes, you were." Obi Wan ended the argument with simply that, leaning back in his chair to symbolize that he wasn't going anywhere.
"Have it that way, then." Maul turned his head away where he lay and gave up the fight.
Obi Wan nodded and watched, brooding to himself as his prisoner was quiet. It wasn't as though he really enjoyed spending time here, but he guiltily suspected that he owed it to both his responsibility and the master that gave it to him to be more diligent in his task. This would all be over soon, he told himself. He would only have to watch over Maul for another fortnight, surely it couldn't be longer than that. Could it? It had already felt like months he had been stationed here; actual months would feel like eons. Not to mention that the more time Maul was kept from trial, the more opportunity he had to plot. Obi Wan wasn't quite sure what was so unsettling about that. Maul was heavily guarded by both soldier and Jedi—had his intent been to escape, he would be hard pressed to pull it off. As far as Maul had expressed, however, he had no plans to even try and escape. Of course, there was no sense taking that to heart. Provided with a chance, anyone would flee their captors.
As Obi Wan looked up, he realized that Maul had turned and was now staring back at him, an unsurprisingly annoyed expression resting on his features. Obi Wan met his eyes with a tired look himself that read as, to the best of his abilities, 'what?'.
After a brief staring contest, Maul eventually grunted and shook his head. "Make yourself useful and pour me a drink."
Obi Wan turned his resentment inward and nodded, pulling himself to his feet on weary legs.
Maul watched Obi Wan pour a cup of water, eyes calculating. "Will this incident place a hesitation on my trial?" he asked, seemingly having intruded somewhere along the lines of Obi Wan's own thinking.
Obi Wan didn't answer for a moment, handing the cup to Maul. "Perhaps. Does that matter to you?"
"Not largely. Though expediency is appreciated, it is pointless to expect efficiency from the Republic. Aside from that, I'm certain you're more entertaining than your blathering delegates."
Obi Wan was a little surprised as he sat back down. That had to be the closest to a compliment a Sith could utter. "Delighted that I could be of service."
"You're still young." Maul said, much to Obi Wan's puzzlement. "How is it that you've become as rigid and anal as your elders?"
Obi Wan narrowed his eyes. So this is what Maul meant by entertaining. He was looking to toy with him. "I suppose I'm just quick to excel." He responded dryly.
"I'm being sincere." Maul smirked. "Most young Jedi are headstrong and foolish. But you, you're every bit as crotchety and reserved as the others."
"I shall take that as a compliment." Obi Wan decided. "What of you, Maul? You're young as well. And yet, you're every bit as conceded and horrid as your elders."
Maul fixed him with a sneer, and Obi Wan suddenly winced.
"…I apologize, there wasn't a reason for me to insult you. I'm only tired."
"Who's to say I didn't take that as a compliment?" Maul dismissed. "I am positively ill of hearing your dutiful apologies."
"Is that so? …Do forgive me." Obi Wan muttered, half jokingly and losing his ardor in his drained state.
"And how long will you stay there? Aren't you concerned with what I may do should you fall asleep?" Maul asked.
Obi Wan wasn't sure if Maul's chatters were out of boredom or whether they were simply a tactic to make Obi Wan leave. "No more than I'm concerned of what you will do at this moment."
"I at least know enough not to attack a Jedi before his senses are down."
"Well how very clever of you." Obi Wan answered absently, wondering what time it was. He was so very tired of these little bickers between himself and his prisoner. He felt as though it had been decades since he'd rested properly. And it didn't seem like he was going to get an opportunity to do so any time soon…
Obi Wan's eyes widened in a hazy attempt at clearing his mind, looking quickly around the room, only to be met by silence and the swift black of night. At first he panicked, thinking straight away that he had fallen asleep for hours this time—that something awful must've happened or…his consciousness slowly came around to rest in its usual state, and he realized that it couldn't have been more than a minute since he last opened his eyes. Maul still lay sleeping across from him. In the past few hours, Obi Wan had been trapped in a cycle of nodding off, only able to catch himself by the barest threads of coherency before he dropped into slumber completely.
His back was sore, his leg was asleep, and his eyes seemed permanently out of focus. He would have taken some time to meditate, but he felt as though the instant his eyes closed he would be unconscious once more. He was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't just leave his post and go to bed, but he was still wary about doing so. The guards can handle the position, can't they? A voice in the back of his mind pointed out. They haven't done much of a job so far…he answered himself. After all, between shift confusion and Maul's sudden turn of health, he wasn't too keen on depending on anyone short of himself to do this job.
He studied Maul's still form for what was surely the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, thinking that by now he must've memorized every tattoo on that body. Despite the threats the dark lord had made, he was out cold and no threat to Obi Wan, who, begrudgingly, was indeed dull on the senses at the moment. Thinking about how pathetic that made the both of them at least gave Obi Wan a chuckle if nothing else. He leaned his cheek down on a palm as he watched…
Obi Wan quickly opened his eyes again, frustrated with himself for being so swift to nod off once more. Without some sort of break, he might as well have been standing watch with the guards for as much as he was straining himself here. To that credit, he was admittedly hungry as well. Straightening up and stretching a little, he resolved his foolish paranoia and leaned to stand…just as he sensed a sudden disturbance.
Obi Wan instantly froze, listening intently with both his physical and mental senses. Some danger was materializing, but what he could not be certain. The very instant his hand grazed the hilt of his lightsaber, however,
—he was flat on his back.
Obi Wan barely had time to register the attack, let alone prevent it, before he was staring up and the ceiling with a deep choke of breath from the force of the blow. If pain should accompany the hit, shock absolved it as the young Jedi lay in confusion. Gaining his wits back about him, he immediately rolled backwards up onto his feet. Under attack! His senses screamed, but from what he hadn't the slightest clue. When he looked back towards the bed, he gaped in horror at the sight that awaited his quickly re-adjusting eyes.
A form trussed in a trim cloak had its back turned from him, poised above Maul's figure with an unsheathed white saber in hand. Obi Wan could not discern species, gender, and certainly not the identity of this creature, but its intentions became all too clear to him.
Assassin!
Obi Wan's saber was lit the moment the word crossed his mind and he launched forward as soon as his feet were stable. With a crack, saber met saber, the mysterious figure having turned just in time to catch the Jedi's blade awkwardly against its own, though it was half bent over the bed to avoid it. Obi Wan bore down hard, tiredness gone and crackling with the aura of a fight. This attacker had successfully caught him off guard, but it had made the grave mistake of not dealing a fatal strike to begin with.
Uttering out an obviously masculine grunt, the intruder flung Obi Wan back saber-wise, who recovered straight away with a graceful display of balance and held his weapon ready. His opponent seemed indecisive, glancing almost frantically from the bed to Obi Wan as he held his own weapon up in defense. Before Obi Wan could ask any questions, the cloaked man leapt back over the bed in a rolling somersault with either the objective of escape or to simply to put distance between them. Obi Wan pursued over the bed at once, swinging his saber diagonally to knock the other's away from its defensive positioning. The man was momentarily stunned away from the right direction, upon which Obi Wan reached out for him. As soon as he felt his fingers clutch fabric, he pulled gruffly and the cover around the assassin's head fell away to reveal a very unfamiliar human face.
The man drew his arm up in retaliation and threw Obi Wan's offending hand aside, an enraged glower on his face as he thrust his saber forward. Obi Wan was forced to back away and around the bed under the cycle of parries, clenching his teeth hard and careful to mind his surroundings in the darkness. He caught the leg of his tipped chair with an ankle as he backed up and flung it along the floor ahead of him towards his attacker's feet, who jumped the offending object with ease and elegantly continued his onslaught. Whoever this assailant was, he was no stranger to close-quarter sword combat. He also was clearly a fair bit older than Obi Wan himself, and possessed a surprising physical strength for his sleek size. Obi Wan braced himself hard on a particularly powerful blow and stumbled back into the middle of the room, ignoring the resonating pain that shook through his bones. As he raised his saber to deflect the next hit, however, he misjudged a single flicker in the darkness, and it was that which undid him.
While he caught the tip of the slashing saber with his own, his attacker leaned into him in the same moment and jerked up the hilt of his weapon straight into Obi Wan's jaw like a sledgehammer. His vision spiraled in an unforgiving whirl before he collided with the tile floor beneath him, a sickening crack echoing across the room where his head met the ground.
The first thing he was able to register from his sprawled out position was agony. The injury to the back of his head was apparently nothing minor. He desperately attempted to clutch at his saber, but it was no longer in his hand and his disoriented fingers groped thin air towards nothing. Each muscle he twitched sent a screaming pulse of pain back to his skull, but he tried to get up all the same. That effort was quickly put to a stop as a foot came down onto his chest, planting him back down to the floor like a helpless infant. Obi Wan could only stare up at his adversary with clouded and shocked eyes, his mind trying madly to find a way to gain the upper hand even as unconsciousness fought to embrace him.
The man sneered above him and held his saber ready to strike the killing blow. "Pity you had to interfere…" he uttered in a panting and gravelly voice. "My quarrel is not with the Jedi."
All Obi Wan knew next was a sudden flash of blue light, and a crackling buzz before his enemy was toppling to the ground in three neatly cut sections. Even as he saw this, his muddled head still anticipated the fatal strike that never came. The last thing he saw, before his vision blurred and blackened into nothing, was Maul standing above him, unsheathed saber in hand.