Title: Naboo Sunrise

Pairing: Darth Maul/Padmé Amidala.

Summary: Darth Maul needs pain to survive.

Rating: Eh… PG-13. They're not that bad.

Warnings: It's Maul/Padmé.

Genre: Action/Adventure/Romance/Drama/Angst

Maulidala 1:

Naboo Sunrise

Author's Notes: This story was about a page and a paragraph long and featured Maul and Padmé in the same room waking up. Mainly it was actually about the two servants, Rosemary and Ian, who were screaming at each other about Ian's sleep talking. It's been edited and now is a oneshot about Maul's inner suffering.

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Early morning dawned on Naboo. The rising sun was bright red, streaking the clouds with purple, red, yellow, and orange. Inside Theed Palace, many people were stirring.

The first of these was the planet's new dictator, Lord Maul. He always arose early to watch the sun rise, not out of any desire for its aesthetic beauty, but because he could stare at it and imagine its searing rays burning him, setting fire to his skin, assaulting his retinas, wave after wave of heat washing over him. Pain was Maul's ritual; it made him strong, it made him powerful. And here at the Theed Palace, pain was in relatively little supply.

Maul had never lived in luxury before he had defeated the Jedi and been assigned by his master to maintain control of Naboo, but as the planet's ruler he was given the most spacious quarters, the finest foods, the best and quickest servants. He had everything he could ever desire…

He glanced at one of those many superfluous and useless desires at this thought. The former Queen Amidala was laying on his sleep couch curled in a tiny ball. At only fourteen years old, Padmé Amidala was truly little more than a child, but she had already experienced more than almost any child would. She had a peculiar sort of strength to her that had attracted Maul's attention, and curious to discover what gave her such strength, he had spared her life.

His master did not know of this. Darth Sidious had witnessed the death of the queen - the false queen. Padmé's double, Sabé, had been more than willing to die if she would be certain her queen would survive. Maul held great respect for those who did not fear death; he had killed her with a swift swipe of his lightsaber, rather than the long, drawn out torture he had intended for her. Padmé had wept for an hour and then recovered herself, and now she was like a frigid brittle statue, frozen and cold. She hid her emotions behind a veil of icy aloofness, but Maul could always sense her fear.

Two voices distracted Maul from his reverie. He glanced at the heavy blast doors as the voices grew louder. One was female, the other male; clearly, both were very angry at one another.

Padmé groaned, her eyes fluttering open. "What's happening?" she asked sleepily.

Maul shrugged carelessly and turned back to stare out the window at the sun, leaning his head against the cool glass pane. His frontal horn scraped against the glass with a tiny shriek, and Maul felt a shudder run from the tip of the horn to its base. It was an odd sensation, slightly painful but not nearly painful enough. Maul growled in the back of his throat, a small mark of greater frustration. It was too easy to grow soft in a place like this.

A sudden buzzing sound made Maul turn from the window. He walked over to the door's intercom and snapped, "What is it?"

"Good morning, my Lord," a girl's voice said cheerfully. "Rosemary here. I'm supposed to be coming in to make certain you're awake and that you've eaten."

Maul snarled, but let the door slide open. The girl called Rosemary entered, red curls bobbing around her pale face. "Morning, Your Highness," she said with a slight nod in Padmé's direction.

"Good morning, Rosemary," Padmé said, still somewhat groggy. "Was it you shouting in the hallway?"

Rosemary grinned lopsidedly. "Yeah… sorry about that…" she muttered. "Nute Gunray was being a bastard again."

Maul snorted. "No surprise there," he said.

"Apparently he isn't capable of doing anything himself," Rosemary said angrily, tossing her red curls out of her eyes. "What did you want to eat again?"

"I'm not hungry," Maul said flatly. He was, in fact, very hungry; but he had to force himself to suffer somehow. Starvation was one very easy way to inflict pain on himself, to keep himself from becoming weak. Nute Gunray was weak; Lord Maul would never be like Nute Gunray.

"Well, Your Highness?" Rosemary was asking Padmé. "Do you want something?"

"Not much. Some toast would be fine."

Rosemary walked over and typed her code into a computer terminal. She quickly sent the command down to the kitchen and then turned back to Maul. "Gunray and Haako should be waiting for you in the throne room, my Lord," she said. "Not that you're looking forward to seeing them or anything, but I imagine they have important business with you. They almost always do."

With a slight bow, she turned and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

Maul glared at the door in silent disapproval, and then turned for the third time to the window, staring out at the sun. It had exploded over the edge of the horizon in a bright ball of fire, but it was still low in the sky. Maul could almost feel the searing heat in his mind's eye, could see the blisters growing on his skin, could picture the blinding white flashes that would become his vision as the sun blinded him.

Heat. Pain. Agony. That was what the sunrise was to him.

It was the only pain left him on this world, other than the throbbing, aching emptiness that was always left within him. That was pain that was untouchable; pain that he had adjusted to so well he had almost forgotten it was there. It was an ache that was permanent, and as he could do nothing about it he simply ignored it. It was pain too dangerous to touch; pain beyond any that he had ever known.

Heat. Pain. Agony.

A Naboo sunrise. That was all he had anymore.