AN: This chapter takes place directly after the last one. Just a reminder that it's been a year since Eldra's capture, so she and Maul are now 18.

Too many choices tear us apart,

I don't want to live like that

– "Elaborate Lives", Aida on Broadway

Maul decided that he would never get tired of fighting Eldra.

She never used the same tactics twice. She adapted; modified her technique whenever they fought. When he first started training against her to better his skills, he never considered that she would do the same. But it worked in his favour, for it meant that he would always have a worthy opponent to fight.

Until Sidious deemed her no longer useful. The thought of being ordered to kill her filled him with an unfamiliar dread. He told himself it was because killing her would be such a waste of a worthy sparring partner. The possibility of there being another reason was something he didn't want to consider.

He'd been ignoring so many things since Eldra had come into his life. It was true what he'd told her, that killing Xev Xrexus had been about keeping the Sith a secret. In the moment he'd struck her down, that had been the only reason. But since then, he liked to relive her death.

"This is vengeance, then? For the girl? For the Padawan?"

And when he did, he bathed in the feeling of satisfaction from killing the woman who had caused Eldra so much pain. Though like with everything else, he ignored how in a way, he'd avenged a Jedi.

"You won't find me mourning over that bugslut."

And he ignored how her words gave him an even greater satisfaction.

Their lightsabers flared as they clashed together, creating a purple glow in the dimly lit training room. Maul advanced on Eldra and she flipped backwards twice to avoid him, sparks lighting up the room as her lightsaber scorched the floor. He had to admire how controlled her jumps and flips were, for her lekku not to get in her way.

His lightsaber brushed too closely to her arm, but she didn't flinch. The sleeve of her robe was singed slightly, and he briefly wondered how many items of clothing they'd gone through due to lightsabers cutting too close. Eldra's original Jedi robes had long since been discarded, replaced with clothes that looked similar to them.

Maul advanced on her again, quicker this time so she couldn't retreat. He used only one side of his lightsaber to strike her own, three times in quick succession. On the third strike their lightsabers locked, and he pushed down on her in a show of strength. With her bending backwards under his weight at an awkward angle, he thought he had her.

But then she smirked, allowed herself to drop to the floor, and used the momentum of the sudden movement to kick him over her head.

He landed on his back hard, which stunned him momentarily. But it was long enough for Eldra to jump to her feet, kick the lightsaber out of his hands and point her own at his neck. She was sweating and panting, but in her eyes was unbridled glee at besting him.

Seeing her standing above him, victorious and strong… It awakened something within him, something he couldn't explain or comprehend.

"Do you yield?" she said.

In response, he raised his hands. He waited for her to switch off her lightsaber before he made his move.

A swift kick to her hand relieved her of her weapon, and another sent her to the floor beside him. Before she could protest, he leapt on top of her, grabbed her wrists and pinned them to the floor either side of her head. He sat on her in a way that prevented her from kicking him off again, and he remained unmoving as she bucked beneath him. She tried to spit in his face, but he moved his head to avoid the shot.

"What are you doing?!" she demanded.

In all honesty, Maul didn't know. Not until he dove in and pressed his lips to hers.

While he had never experienced it due to his utter devotion to the Sith and his master, Maul was aware of the pleasures of the flesh. On his travels, he had witnessed other beings in the galaxy performing such acts, from small touches and kisses to other things they probably shouldn't have been doing in public. But such acts never interested him.

Until Eldra.

Everything he'd ignored regarding what he felt about her had led him to this moment. He could feel the light side of the Force deep within her, its tendrils twisting around him and pulling him in, and he didn't care. All he knew was that he wanted Eldra with an intense desire he'd never felt before.

Eldra went still beneath him when their lips first touched, most likely from shock. But when that wore off and she realised what was happening, she started to buck again. When that failed to move him, she bit down hard on his lip. That only made him want her more. But he did pull back, giving her the chance to headbutt him, hard.

His head snapped backwards, and his grip on her wrists loosened. Eldra yanked her arms back before quickly punching Maul in the face, then took advantage of his unbalanced body and threw him off of her. She then leapt to her feet before he could try and grab her again.

Eldra called her lightsaber back to her hand, never taking her eyes off him. Maul stared up at her, not at all surprised by her reaction, but at the same time he felt… hurt. He hated it. Hated that this Jedi could cause him such pain.

But through the Force, he could sense no disgust coming from her. Just shock… and fear. It hovered around her with an unnatural familiarity, and looking into her wide, frightened eyes, Maul found himself despairing.

Getting a Jedi to fear him should have made him ecstatic. Instead, it actually hurt worse than her rejection. It startled him to realise that he didn't want Eldra to be afraid of him, not anymore. How the mighty had fallen. (Only that didn't bother him as much as it should have.)

After staring at him for a long moment, Eldra turned on her heel and fled the room.

And once again, Maul had to fight down the urge to scream and beg for her to stay.

Eldra couldn't even begin to comprehend what had happened in the training room.

Maul had kissed her. Kissed her.

He's a Sith, for Force's sake! Why would he kiss his mortal enemy?!

It would be so easy to explain it away as a ploy to trick her, or a tactic to throw her off-balance so he could finally kill her. The fact that she was still alive disproved the latter theory. As for the former… She'd become scarily attuned to his moods and his way of thinking during her captivity. She would've been able to tell if it had been a trick.

His eyes tended to give him away. In the split second before he'd kissed her, she saw the desire in them; saw how much he wanted her. And then, when she'd thrown him off, he actually looked hurt.

But what shocked her the most was that kissing him hadn't made her skin crawl.

That was probably due to the fragile bond that existed between them, something Eldra was reluctant to admit was there. And in truth, she could make a whole list of people who she'd want to kiss less. It was the realisation that she was kissing a Sith Lord – one who was willingly partaking in holding her captive – that made her reject him.

And there was also the fear of how far it could've gone, without her consent.

She ignored that bantha in the room and instead focussed on what could have possibly motivated him to glue himself to her face. It was after she'd defeated him, so it could've been some kind of weird domination thing. But she'd defeated him before, many times, and he'd never done it then.

Eldra turned to look in the mirror at the far end of her bedroom and stared at her reflection. Her gaze narrowed in on the sleeve that had been singed by Maul's lightsaber; the close encounter had left behind a hole, big enough for skin to be clearly visible through it. Not that it mattered. A little extra skin exposure wouldn't hurt; all of the clothes Venny had bought for her were modest like her Jedi robes. She was lucky she wasn't being forced to wear the usually attire of Twi'lek slave girls.

The thought hit her and wouldn't go away. Maybe that was the reason for Maul's actions. He'd finally realised he had a beautiful Twi'lek girl as his slave, and wanted to take advantage of that.

She didn't want to feel the anger that suddenly coursed through her, but she felt like this time, it was justified. Men are all the same, even Sith Lords.

Eldra shook her head. No, that wasn't true; that was just the anger talking. Not all men were like that. The Jedi weren't the type obviously, and she'd met plenty of men outside of the Temple who had treated her like a person instead of a sexual object.

But she'd lost count of how many times men had looked her up and down with thinly concealed lust in their eyes. Lost count of how many times she and her master had entered a seedy bar for information and had men hit on her – or worse, touch her without her permission. Though that came with the benefit of those sleemos regretting it pretty quickly afterwards when she'd tossed them across the room.

"Padawan, a mind trick exists for a reason."

"So they can just go and try it on another girl who isn't a Jedi? This way they'll never do it again."

"We're never going to enter a bar without having to fight our way out of it, are we?"

"Probably not."

Eldra squeezed her eyes shut but refused to cry. What was once calming – remembering her time with her master – instead felt like someone was squeezing her heart with an iron grip. This time, Leora Ori wasn't beside her. This time, Eldra was alone.

The familiar fear crept up on her.

It reminded her of Aston Luske, a Force-sensitive human she and Leora had encountered two years previously. He'd acted like he was entitled to have her for her beauty, and she'd been terrified that he would overpower her and take her against her will. It had definitely been the most violent instance of that kind of behaviour.

When she'd been a captive of Xev Xrexus, she'd been worried that one of the guards would enter her cell and force himself on her. Xrexus had ordered that she remained unharmed, but she doubted the woman would've stopped her men from doing other sorts of things to her. And being cut off from the Force, there wasn't much Eldra would have been able to do to stop them.

She thanked the Force it hadn't happened.

The mantra of indifference had kept her going for over a year; the knowledge that things were bad but at least she hadn't suffered a worse fate. She should have known it wouldn't last, that it was too good to be true. Her lightsaber still sat in her hand, and she found herself looking down at it. She wondered if she finally had the strength to turn it on herself…

Eldra looked up towards the door. She could sense Maul approaching.

He opened it without knocking, but remained in the doorway. Eldra couldn't describe what she could see in his eyes; he almost looked lost, but then she couldn't imagine a Sith Lord looking weak in any way.

She clenched her empty fist, kept her lightsaber ready and got to her feet, never taking her eyes off of him. "If you're coming to ask me to change into one of those stupid slave bikinis, I'm not interested in playing out your perverted fantasies. So go shove it."

Maul actually looked confused. "Why would I ask you to wear that? They're impractical for fighting."

The urge to scream at him almost got the better of her, but her master's voice in her mind stopped her before she could.

Careful, Padawan. Do not start a conflict when it is not needed.

Eldra composed herself. There was nothing to prove that was what he wanted from her. All she had was a hunch – a mighty strong hunch, but a hunch nonetheless. She needed him to say it, to admit it to her, before she could take drastic action. For all she knew, he could've just kissed her to annoy her and had no intention of doing it again.

So she sighed, and asked in an even voice, "Why did you kiss me?"

Maul was silent. There was a slight frown on his face, like he was trying to figure out how to answer her. Eldra realised with a start that he didn't seem to know why he'd kissed her, and was trying to figure it out himself. It didn't surprise her that a Sith wouldn't know the first thing about relationships.

She decided to help him out and added, "Is it because of how I look?"

"No." His answer to that was instant. "Why would I kiss you because of how you look?"

That surprised her. And from how he sounded, he wasn't trying to flatter her with what she wanted to hear; he sounded genuinely confused at the notion that he would act on being physically attracted to her beauty. But while it was nice to know that he didn't think of her as a sexual object, that still didn't answer her question. "Then why?"

His head tilted as he considered her. "You were standing above me, so… strong. So full of spirit; one that cannot be broken. And you defeated me through cunning." It sounded like her was purring as he spoke. "I did not know what I wanted to do to you until I did it. I cannot explain what this is. This… burning desire."

Eldra could only stare at him in shock.

Part of her warned herself not to explain it to him; as a Sith, he would most likely kill her in order to stop those feelings from continuing. Or his master would kill her so she could no longer distract his apprentice. Another part of her couldn't process the idea that a Sith Lord could even feel what he'd described to her.

What was more, he didn't even feel that way about her because of how she looked. It was because of who she was. It was almost… sweet.

And I can't believe I just thought of a Sith Lord as 'sweet'. He's not sweet. He's confused by feelings his master no doubt tried to torture out of him, and has no idea how to process them.

Eventually, she found her voice. "Way too many men have wanted me because they say I'm pretty to look at. At least you're not one of them."

"Because this is the face of someone who cares about physical attractiveness."

She couldn't stop the sudden burst of laughter that exploded out of her, thought she quickly reined it back in when she saw Maul react in surprise towards her outburst. "Sorry."

Maul crossed his arms, considering her for a moment. "You feel strongly about this matter. It makes you feel… angry. And afraid." If Eldra didn't know any better, she would say that he looked concerned.

But she wasn't surprised that Maul was able to read her so well. Like she to his, he'd become attuned to her moods. "In case you haven't noticed, Twi'lek women are popular among the slave cartels for reasons that should be obvious. I used to think that being a Jedi would protect me from a fate like that, but getting captured by Xev Xrexus pretty much destroyed that notion. And I was already terrified of what other Force-wielders could do to me."

"What other…?" She was starting to think that Maul really was concerned, because there was no other explanation for the look in his eyes as he watched her. "You thought that I would…?"

"No." His words surprised her. He was a Sith; she didn't think that sort of thing would matter to him. Unless he was insulted by the assumption that he would desire her for reasons he considered to be beneath him, like physical attractiveness. "I never got that vibe from you. And you made it pretty clear to me right from the start that you wanted to fight me. I was referring to someone I met before you."

"The Sith are always two. A master and an apprentice. You cannot have met another."

Eldra shook her head. "He wasn't a Sith. Wasn't a Jedi, either. His name was Aston Luske, and he grew up in a small village on some back-water planet I can't remember the name of. Far enough from the Republic to slip under the Jedi's radar. He taught himself how to use the Force, and he became the town hero. To say that it went to his head would be a massive understatement. He got whatever he wanted… until I came along and ruined his day."

"He desired you, and you rejected him."

She nodded. "He felt entitled to have me because I was the most beautiful being he'd ever seen. He claimed that he deserved the best. But I turned him down – not even because of the Jedi Code, but because he was an egotistical mess – and he didn't know how to deal with that. I wasn't surprised that he fell to the dark side faster than lightspeed."

Maul frowned. "There's more to it than that."

"Yeah." She sighed. "My master and I were on a mission, and when this went down, we hadn't completed it. So while we were trying to track down an escaped convict, Aston was making the mission ten times harder by constantly interfering. And one night… he found where I was sleeping, broke in, and tried to force himself on me. I immediately beat his arse because a trained Jedi he is not, and I kept telling everyone afterwards I was fine, but… It shook me."

The Sith didn't judge her, didn't call her weak. He just watched her. "How many times did he attempt it?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"So I can determine how painfully Aston Luske needs to die."

The fact that he wanted to brutally murder someone didn't surprise her. The fact that he seemed to want to do it in order to avenge her did. "I sorta beat you to the punch. Maybe. I'm not sure. Our last fight ended with me kind of accidentally pushing him into one of the tallest waterfalls in the galaxy. His chances of survival were slim, but then I've heard of people surviving worse, especially Force-wielders."

"A pity."

"And it's a bit hypocritical, you getting angry over that. You forced a kiss on me, remember?"

He didn't respond to her, at least not verbally. He raised an eyebrow in her direction with a look that screamed 'And?' Which she should have expected, seeing as his emotional comprehension was severely lacking.

Survive. Do what you must to survive. Eldra sighed, reminding herself of her earlier realisation that there were worse people that could've kissed her. Maul was, strangely enough, a better option than Aston. And if she was going to roll with what was happening, then she at least wanted to have some form of control over it. She refused to be a victim.

So, she continued and asked, "Maybe ask me first next time, OK?"

She got a small victory out of the surprise that flashed across Maul's face. He quickly composed himself and said, "I thought the Jedi Code forbade attachments? That such acts were considered to be a path to the dark side?"

And to that, she shot back with, "I thought the Sith considered such acts a weakness?"

Eldra was rewarded once again with the same look of surprise, though instead of composing himself, Maul instead grinned. "I suppose it doesn't matter if we're both breaking the rules, does it?"

Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she really was falling to the dark side.

But maybe this was the way forward. In a way, her original plan had sort of worked, and she wasn't about to back out now.