Obdurate Heart – XX

Thanks again to all who reviewed. Sorry again for the wait. I hope I don't disappoint you guys! I have less time to write on this, it seems, but it's still going. I really don't have plans to cancel it. I have it planned out, so, we'll see what happens.

Man's power of choice enables him to think like an angel or a devil, a king or a slave. Whatever he chooses, mind will create and manifest.

- Frederick Bailes

Bizarre as it was, and as inconceivable as it may have seemed to some, the interaction between Obi Wan and Maul had evolved to a level that one might deign to call amicable. During the next two days, it was almost as though they had never been enemies at all. Obi Wan decided that it just must have been pointless to carry on as they had been, since neither had any say over the other. Maul could not change Obi Wan's duties to make him go away, and Obi Wan could not neglect that duty, and in that some form of understanding set upon them at last.

"You could do with some better guards." Maul informed, chipping a thumbnail idly over a horn. "They're frightened of me. Even now."

"I would think you'd take pride in that." Said Obi Wan as he offered a tray of solid foods.

Maul looked down at it with an unasked question, shrugging one striped shoulder. "I was trained to cause fear, yes, but I grow very tired of those who allow it to inhibit them. Even if that is its function. It bores me. The galaxy is indeed a cowardice place—do you realize that there are even those who would fear you?"

"I can't imagine." He replied as he sat down with his own usual cup of tea. "…But shouldn't they fear you Maul? Would you not kill them were they out of line or attack at will? Perhaps it isn't even so much fear as it is the caution to stay a safe distance from a rabid animal."

"So does that make you bold or stupid?" Maul glared at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you brave, or are you just rattling my cages?"

"I don't fear you, if that's what you think." Obi Wan shook his head. He of course would not admit that initially, a part of him had.

"Ah. Then you think I'm an animal." Maul chuckled and prodded what was on his tray.

Obi Wan watched him for the moment. It was rare that Maul even seemed to hunger, and when he did eat, it was sparingly. Perhaps food was low on a Sith apprentice's priorities. It was hard to get over the drab irony that as a prisoner, Maul was most likely receiving some of the finer treatment of his life. "An animal, no. A danger, yes."

"…And if I were not a Sith, what then?"

"That depends." Obi Wan mused. "In this scenario, have I seen your ability with the saber?"

"Would you fear me as anything else, were I not a Sith?" he restated.

"…If your cruelties were commensurate, yes."

"Hm." Maul nodded as if in approval, tapping his fork into something and biting it.

"You're asking me to look at you simply as a man. Does that mean you aren't proud of your Sith association?" he asked, surprising himself by sounding almost hopeful.

"I am not ashamed of it." Maul replied casually. "It is a way of life. The one I was taken into."

"How can you identify so with the Sith? …They took away your options. You were forced to be what you are, how is it that you can respect that over the way of the Jedi?"

"Choice." Maul stared at Obi Wan harshly, setting down his utensil. "Because the Jedi have a choice, those options that most Sith do not have. You choose to be a Jedi, not because you are threatened otherwise or because there is no other way, but because you believe it is just. You are presented with a choice between freedom and the chains of one affiliate, and you choose the latter… That is what sickens me about your Order."

Obi Wan hesitated, his tea forgotten where it sat on his knee. "…Oh." Was all he managed to say.

"Oh." Maul repeated with distaste. "Now you tell me. What pride do you have in being a Jedi?"

Obi Wan mentally shrugged at such a very simple question. "In my humble opinion, servitude to justice is of the highest calling."

"Justice cannot be served outside of the Jedi Order?"

"It seems that it very seldom is."

"And how would you know this?" Maul took another bite and kept his eyes on Obi Wan, looking genuinely intrigued. "You have never seen justice or injustice from any other point of view aside from the communal brain of your council."

"Do not presume to know where my path has taken me, Maul." Obi Wan ordered, and Maul backed off with a snort. "Despite what you might think, I am not a mindless drone. I do have my own priorities, it is simply that so many of them coincide with the Jedi teachings."

"How convenient." Maul muttered. "And what would happen to you if you should betray those teachings in light of a disagreement?"

"I don't think I shall ever disagree with them." Obi Wan returned easily. How could he, after all?

"If the Jedi instructed you to do something you felt to be unjust, would you refuse, or would you convince yourself that it is right for the sake of obedience?"

Obi Wan opened his mouth, eyes narrowing in contemplation. "I trust in the council enough to believe that they would never instruct me to do something I could not."

"I see. And so you have agreed with them in every matter?"

"Master Yoda is very wise. Far more so than I, I have no reason to distrust whatever decision he makes."

"My master is also wise." Maul said ominously, and Obi Wan hesitated with a sudden dutiful hope to hear more on that subject. "…That does not prove his commands, nor his decisions, just."

"…Master Yoda can be compared in no way to a Sith." Obi Wan said rather defensively.

"And if he asked you to betray your heart, what then? To betray what you love? If he asks you tomorrow to plunge a saber into your master's heart, would you do this? Or the boy, would you kill the child? When faced with the choice between duty and honor, which do you choose?"

"That is completely absurd." Obi Wan stated loudly. "Maul, I certainly don't see your point in all of this. Which would you choose?"

"Duty, of course." Maul said without wait. "Under the Sith's hand, duty is all one knows."

"And so, by your own admission that you yourself are corrupt, you're telling me that honor is the correct choice?"

"Perhaps. My larger point is that you would also choose duty. My point is that, like me, you are a drone. A pawn. That our kinds are more alike than you would condescend to believe." Maul's voice had turned much darker, his eyes boring into his company in an unforgiving way. "How far will you allow them to push you?"

Obi Wan chose to say nothing to that, challenging the stare that was placed upon him.

"Is that braid of yours really considered fashionable?" Maul spoke after only a few moments.

Obi Wan struggled in a moment of confusion as he attempted to correlate that statement to the previous one. "…It is a Padawan braid." He explained.

"So that's it then." Maul nodded, rubbing a finger under his chin slightly.

"I could ask you about the tattoos."

"Do you know nothing of my species?"

"I know but a little. But I've never seen ones like yours."

"I'm sure I could not give you your prying answers, these were not my choice." He swept a hand over the flat of his chest in disregard.

"…I'm sorry, I don't know why I would assume that they were." Obi Wan slowly let his eyes travel a striped wrist closest to him. He did not know what it must have been like to have your body so marked and not to truly understand why. Though he was far from pitying Maul.

Maul suddenly seemed rather uncomfortable about having said that. "…If you're so enamored with them, perhaps they will let you keep my hide as a trophy after the execution."

Obi Wan's eyes widened slightly. "What a horrific thing to say."

"I wonder if you'll be there. In the front ranks, watching my trial, nodding to yourself in approval as the deed is done and justice is served." Maul snickered and pushed his half-eaten plate away.

Obi Wan could think of nothing to combat that with, but he was rather disturbed by this point.

"Keep your eyes in your head, fool, I'm toying with you." Maul smirked, almost seeming to offer those words in assurance.

"…I don't find it humorous." Obi Wan spoke bitterly as he leaned forward to clear Maul's tray from him. As he reached, however, his hand was halted by another encircling his wrist, making him pause and bristle. Though it held nothing of the force with which he had been snatched before, it was nevertheless a demanding grip.

Maul turned Obi Wan's wrist over in his hand casually, and Obi Wan's own eyes traveled downward to examine for himself the contrast of pale flesh against rich reds and ebony. "In that case, why don't I add one more useless apology to your list?" Maul chuffed sarcastically, though his tone was perversely gentler than before.

Obi Wan felt his skin grow hot, but he kept his expression stoic. "I'd thank you not to damage this arm further."

"You do not fear me." Maul stated, and he seemed to enjoy something about this.

"I don't." Obi Wan attempted to keep his voice steady, vastly unsettled by the powerful hand that kept him still.

"And yet, even now, I could easily kill you."

"You could easily try." Obi Wan corrected.

With a fast but painless jerk, Maul brought Obi Wan closer, eyes smoldering. "Obstinate fool…" he nearly purred, and Obi Wan attempted to recoil, to no avail. Maul drew up his other hand to grip the Jedi's chin, forcing him to tilt his head a little as he studied the face before him.

Obi Wan knew that he should pull away for the sake of his own safety, but his appalled curiosity made him oddly willing to see what this madman was doing.

Maul continued to check his form over as though he were surveying the quality of some stock animal. "You're persistent." He uttered, and Obi Wan found it strange that he did not shudder as he felt two fingers sweep intrusively down his cheek. "That much was clear the moment I laid eyes on you. But you are also unusually strong…and I find that very…interesting."

"Flattering to know, I'm sure…" Obi Wan carefully lifted a hand to push Maul's away from his face, not moving his eyes from his prisoner's. "I'd very much love my arm back."

"Don't stress yourself, I'm not going to harm you…" Maul continued, ignoring the request. "Does it bother you to be touched? Have the Jedi made you so robotic?"

"It is not the hand, it is the one it belongs to." Obi Wan felt himself pull back a little in distrust.

"Touch is an interesting thing…" Maul mused. "It hurts no matter how gentle, doesn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. In fact I feel as though I never do." He spouted honestly.

"Don't you? You are cold, perhaps not plainly, but it is there. You are like your elders, as I've said before. Nothing can touch you, and when it does…when it breaks past your barriers of emotional repression…it scars." That smirk was still lying carelessly on his face.

Obi Wan swallowed and hardened his expression, growing very apprehensive. "…Is that your aim, then? You think you can scar me?"

Maul gripped his hand back forcefully at Obi Wan's chin. "Not all scars are damning." And with that, he quickly caught the young Jedi's lip with his own.

Obi Wan tried to bark out his protest, but he was quickly muffled, and hopelessly paralyzed with mortification. He was instantly sick to his stomach, but his mouth was gaped in shock, and that only served to defeat his resistance entirely. In a flash his senses kicked in, and he tried to pull back, only to be pulled further in instead. The hand that was pinned to the bed gripped at Maul's wrist as though pleading him to stop and his chest heaved in a mixture of anger and panic, but he couldn't find the strength to shove away from it. He was slowly going limp, unable to process. When he felt the hand at his jaw loosen, however, it spurred in him some strange renewal of strength and he tore himself away, stumbling up and nearly falling back as he retreated.

He clumsily knocked over his chair and fell back a few more steps, wiping a hand along his mouth and staring at Maul in horror, who was watching him coolly from his relaxed position. He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but nothing would come, the simple madness of it rendering him completely disoriented. As he slowly regained his ability to reflect, anger grew quickly within him. "Don't—!" he cried out. "Don't ever do that again!" He didn't think he had ever heard his own voice so uncontrollable.

Maul kept an eerie calmness on his features, scratching his chest lazily as he watched Obi Wan's flustered retreat. "Did I frighten you?" he drawled.

"I am not frightened!" Obi Wan snapped firmly. "I am disgusted that such a—that you would have the audacity to—" he held a hand to his head and tried hard to speak clearly. "You are a twisted and sadistic loon. That was a completely unacceptable and atrocious act, and I—"

"And you over-exaggerate." Maul shook his head, watching him carefully.

Obi Wan moved forward in anger, but then stepped back, eyes glancing at both Maul and around the room as though he were looking for some witness to prove to him the insanity of the situation. "I think I've had quite enough of you for today." He said as his eyes returned to his offender, and he set himself to turning his chair upright in a hurry.

"Have you?" Maul watched Obi Wan's frantic movements lazily.

Obi Wan didn't say another word as he snatched the tray away and marched out of the room.