AN: As I mentioned before, this is only the first story in a series. The next one is on the way, but I want to finish it first before I begin posting. I'll try not to keep you all waiting too long. :)

Oh, and sorry that the beginning quote is longer than usual. I couldn't cut it down.

And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow. In the end you don't even want to.

In the end, the shadow is all you have left. Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself.

And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.

– "Revenge of the Sith", Matthew Stover

"Far above… far below… We don't know where we'll fall…"

His legs were gone.

"Far above… far below… What once was great is rendered small."

Those were the words he repeated, over and over, as he drew upon the dark side of the Force to keep himself alive.

Everything had happened so fast. His victory over the Jedi had been all but assured, but in seconds that victory had been snatched from him and then he was falling. Down, down, down towards the reactor.

"Far above… far below…"

Maul had barely managed to grab the air vent that had been the key to his survival. He'd helplessly watched his legs tumble down towards the reactor.

"We don't know where we'll fall…"

It was a long, slow, agonising crawl along the ventilation shaft. The only exit led him into a trash container.

"Far above… far below…"

And only when he was lying there among the garbage that everything hit him.

"What once was great is rendered small."

He had failed his master.

He had failed his family.

With the desperation of a potentially dying man, he dug into his robes. When his fingertips touched the paper, he felt a small moment of content that the picture was still there.

It didn't last long. The burning need for his family overwhelmed him.

He needed to get back to them… He needed to keep them safe…

There was no way out of the container. And even if there was, he couldn't get very far without his legs. He wasn't strong enough to get out, wasn't strong enough to protect them from the Jedi and his master…

His master. Sidious would never take him back after his failure.

Maul began to shake with terror at the thought of Sidious near his family. There was the old fear of his master taking Kassandra, but instead he was filled with a new fear, because in order for his master's plans to continue on schedule he needed an adult apprentice, not another child, so he would have no use for Kassandra and no time to train her as an assassin while he focussed on his next apprentice, and Eldra would go down fighting, protecting her daughter, so Sidious would kill them both and Maul could do nothing to stop him, he was helpless, powerless, he hated his master, he hated the Jedi, he hated, he hated…

Kenobi.

"Far above…"

The young Jedi's face was the last face he saw before he plunged.

"…far below…"

Obi-Wan Kenobi had bested him. A Jedi Padawan, like Eldra – a friend of Eldra, no less.

"We don't know where we'll fall…"

Maul should have defeated him. He'd slaughtered Qui-Gon Jinn, a Jedi Master. The Padawan should have been easy.

"Far above… far below…"

And yet there he was, lying amongst the discarded waste.

"What once was great…"

Obi-Wan Kenobi had denied him his destiny as a Sith. Obi-Wan Kenobi had stopped him from protecting those he cared for. Obi-Wan Kenobi had condemned them to die.

"…is rendered small."

And one day, Maul would have his revenge.

Ending Note: A long time ago, before Disney bought Star Wars (but only just before, I think), I read a story on this very site that was only a few chapters long, but had so much potential to be awesome. Maul had a daughter with some random slave lady who then died in childbirth, and he was terrified that Sidious would take her away. But then after he was defeated on Naboo, Obi-Wan found the child and decided to bring her to the Jedi Temple out of guilt for killing her father.

The story ended there, but the sequel held so much promise. The girl would become a Jedi, Obi-Wan would become her master in the Clone Wars, Maul would return... and discover that his child is being trained by the man who cut him in half. The drama basically wrote itself. The story was left hanging for a while, but I was willing to be patient.

But then the story vanished. Along with the author's profile page. I searched all over the internet for it, but couldn't find it anywhere, and it didn't help that by that time I'd forgotten the daughter's name. It was a shame, because I'd never seen a Maul story with that premise before. So, after realising that I'd probably never find the story - I decided to write my own version.

The notes have been sitting on my laptop for years. Over time the story has turned into much more than what the original was; the daughter's name kept changing, the ending kept changing. After the Maul comic came out, I decided to make Eldra the mother, adding a Jedi/Sith forbidden romance to the plot, along with keeping her alive when I realised that would be far more interesting instead of her pulling a Padme. Now, the story is far longer than I originally intended, and a lot different than what the original was.

I guess what I'm saying is, if the original author is out there and reading this... I hope you don't mind me borrowing your story idea and crafting it into my own version of it. Maybe one day you can finish yours too. :)