(I do not own anything from Star Wars.)
Chapter Three: Pinion
Uriael woke up to find that she was covered in something warm and dry. As her hands pushed against the ground, they sank into what appeared to be sand. Her hands that were, at the time, pushing her up became tender from the heat that rose from the unstable earth.
As she stood up she was forced to shut her eyes. There must have been a wind storm where ever she was. The storm was so violent that the sky was not visible. There was only the dark tan sheet of hard dust that covered from end to end of every direction.
She shielded her eyes with an arm and trudged through the untamed ground. She stumbled through walking a number of times. It seemed that moving faster only made traveling more difficult.
Her mind and body urged her to move forward. She did not understand as to what this was for or how she had gotten there.
Just as her thoughts were distracting her from the piercing wind, it stopped. The sand that had been thrown into the air settled unnaturally fast and easy to the ground. Her eyes clenched shut as two suns strained her sight. As she slowly opened them, only allowing so much of the light to pass through, she could see a figure.
She continued forward, in a sprint, through the mounds of sand. The figure she was running towards seemed to remain motionless. Without understanding why, she continued forward.
The two suns glared towards the ground and caused a shadow to reach from the figure to her. Each time one of her feet hit the shifting ground she had gotten closer.
She found herself a few feet behind what looked like a young boy.
"Excuse me- where am I?"
He turned around at her and stared blankly with a pair of grayish-blue colored eyes.
His look concerned her as he looked like he had been betrayed, as if something had been taken from him or done to him.
She paced over to the boy and rested a hand on his head.
"What's troubling you, young one?" She asked kindly, while stroking his dirty blonde hair.
He held a somewhat lost expression and stared at her without saying a word.
All of a sudden, he looked down and began to cry. His little sobs and sniffles coerced her to bring him into a soft hug.
"Why are you crying?" She queried, keeping the tone at a comforting level.
He looked down further and wiped his eyes with one hand.
"Am I going to be like him?" He hardly got out.
"Like who?" She gently lifted up his face to hers, so she could see him speak.
He finally looked back at her.
She froze as the once beautiful blue eyes were now a beastly blast of yellow, orange, and red. His eyes were no longer innocent, but were now filled with a dark evil that she had felt once before.
She withdrew herself from the boy and stepped away from him, out of fear of what he could possibly be or represent.
The boy began to cry harder and his face contorted into a strained frown. He was obviously afraid of what she had seen.
She crawled back over to him, with a strain of guilt in her stomach, and grabbed a hold of his small-framed face.
"Like who?" she asked while her voice shook from his sadness and her own confusion.
"Like me."
The little boy looked past her and was terrified of what he saw, and the voice she had heard caused the very innards of her being to turn into ice.
That voice… Anakin…
She turned her head slowly to see a man that she had once known, in her life with the Jedi. This man used to be a Jedi, like her, but had recently become nothing more than a dark and twisted monster.
The man had long, wavy brown hair and was handsome despite his animalistic, yellow eyes. He looked on at her with a misguided hate that she had hoped he would overcome… and did not.
His voice then changed from that of Anakin Skywalker into the cold robotic one that was the true voice of the man that had betrayed her as well as everyone else they had both known together.
"Tatooine, Uriael. The Jedi are not yet extinct."
…
"Get up, you lazy wench."
Uriael, still curled up on the mattress, opened her eyes hesitantly. The voice of Volutta, one of Azazul's women, had awoken her from the strange dream that she had.
Volutta was already in the cell and pulled Uriael up by one of her still exhausted arms.
"Sorry, did I wake you? Get yourself up- we have to try and make you look tasteful," Volutta said with rudeness.
"What am I to do?" Uriael questioned quietly.
"You are to stay with one of Azazul's guests for however long he can stand you."
"A guest," Uriael repeated.
Now it is with other men too…
"Yes, a guest, and a highly respected guest at that. If you show him lack of respect, I will get one of the guards to beat you until you are on the verge of death, and tell Lord Azazul of your impudence."
Volutta finished that off with a smirk, as if she began to daydream about the Jedi being tortured.
Uriael knew well of what her defiance would bring her, if she ever did show it again.
"We have to give you one of our dresses, we have to make you up, do your hair- your disgusting body will be in one of our dresses! I will burn it as soon as Maul throws you out."
Uriael continued ignoring Volutta and did not hear the name of the next man that would have her.
Volutta pulled her naked body through the hall, until they reached an elevator, which led up to the floor where she and the other handmaidens stayed.
I do hate this.
Maul was now in the second largest room of the house, where he would stay. Azazul had already left. So he was now the head of this "house."
To his left and to the right of the entrance was a bedroom. It was dark, just how he liked it. He looked in and found a large bed with dark blue, velvet sheets. The room was rather large and included a tall and wide window with velvety drapes, a large ceiling to floor mirror, and a closet built for a queen.
Out of the bedroom there was a living room, which was full of burgundy-fabricated chairs and couches. There was even an opening to a balcony- a rather large balcony, which seemed to take up half of the room.
The food quarter was basic, but very clean. Maul walked up the steps to the kitchen to go over to the water dispenser.
He pressed a small red button on the wall, which turned it on. He then pulled off the leather, metal plated glove from his right hand, which allowed the water to trickle over his red and black patched hands. After he felt the coolness of the water on his skin, he whisked his hand away and turned off the dispenser.
He left the kitchen, took off his robe and then sent it over to lie on the back of a chair that was seated directly across from the left edge of the balcony.
He then walked into the refresher. It was indeed huge, covered in peach colored tile and lined with silvery grout. The shower itself appeared large enough to fit a whole party of people. The bath next to it was pearl white, awfully large as well.
The cloaked-being took off his black, heavy tunic, which allowed the patterns to show in his privacy. He received the tattoos as a mark of accomplishment when Master Sidious had deemed his training a success.
He sent the tunic over to lie on the back of the couch and walked over to the opening. He looked through a plate of glass to see the city of Coruscant. One of his dark fingers grazed against a screen, which caused the curved-in glass to slowly rise off of the floor.
As he walked out, he could smell the cool air and the smell of the city. The now orange sky was descending into night. He continued on until he reached the balcony's edge. He leaned over the white marble allowing his eyes to linger over the Old Republic.
He knew he should have been pleased for his Master, for he had finally done it. They had found their revenge against the Jedi who had brought destruction to the Sith ranks before him.
But it was not he who had helped; it was Vader. That whiney, little brat that was unable to keep up with Qui-Gon Jinn, the first day that he had made his existence known to everyone.
Maul used to be Sidious' apprentice and his most loyal subject. Maul only lived to serve Sidious. It was all he ever truly held as a truth. Those years of agonizing training and pain had become the closest thing to fond memories that he would ever have.
Now, he not only wasn't a Sith Lord, but he also felt like he had never been one. He felt like an assassin who just so happened to be connected to the dark side. He was in the shadow of Darth Vader.
Deep down, he knew that he deserved it.
He knew that there were certain rules that he had to obey as an apprentice. He would no longer hold back the amount of pleasure that he once knew as irresponsible and immoral.
It had been a while since he had felt the alluring sensation of pleasure with a woman.
"What are these, girl?"
Volutta snatched up Uriael's left wrist, which caused her to wince. She remained silent.
"Even more markings to show your place," Volutta smirked at the girl, who was much younger than she was. "I guess that we will have to dress you in something that covers these disgusting scabs."
This had been the first time that she had worn anything other than a halter top and a skirt.
Volutta and two other handmaidens, both of which were Theelin, threw a black dress over her head. It was long sleeved, stopped at the knee, low cut, and tied in the front and back. The front was tied all the way from her bellybutton to her chest.
They pulled it tight, just to enhance her cleavage so that she would come off as bustier than she really was. The ties on her back were mostly for décor and exposed her fair skin. The long sleeves were wide, allowing lack of contact on her chaffed skin.
She watched as one of the maidens pulled her purplish-brown colored hair back into a tight ponytail, exposing the scars on her face. The maiden had pulled her hair so hard that the Jedi was almost certain that her scalp had begun to bleed.
They had piled dark eye shadow onto her eyelids, giving the false impression of older age. The dark green powder made her gray eyes dazzle, but only that.
She stared into the mirror to look at herself. She felt that she looked like a tramp. No matter how glamorous anything seemed to make anyone else, it was filth on her.
Everything she had learned as a youngling and then as a young woman seemed to be a waste. All of the training with Shaak Ti and her other Masters had been useless to her predicament thus far.
She was their whore.
"Azazul will not be here for a while. Your luck, I suppose."
If I were lucky, I'd be dead.
"Come now- we must bring you to him as soon as possible. Hopefully by his reputation, he will not let you live after he is finished with his lusting."
The woman grabbed Uriael by the arms and forced her to get up. Uriael was the same height as Volutta, but because the Zeltron liked to wear high-heels, she tended to always tower over the Jedi.
"Now listen- you are going to wear this. You remember what this is, don't you?"
Volutta unveiled a strange wriggling neck brace, which was about the size and shape of a choker, and clasped it around Uriael's neck, rather roughly.
The sensation of several tiny needles entering into her skin resonated almost everywhere the choker covered, and it caused her to wince, but the wince was not much of a surprise as she had been used to this tool against her.
"You know that it keeps the Force out of your reach, as long as you allow it to run its course for an hour. Be sure it stays on for that long. You are not to tell this man that you are a Jedi, or even hint to him that you are familiar with that cur of a group. Maybe even come off as if you enjoy your time with him," Volutta finished, as if she had begun to imagine being with this man herself.
Uriael could not care less about informing someone of her being a Jedi. Whoever this man was would more than likely not change his plans for her.
"If you do think of informing him, just remember- Azazul isn't the only one that knows some tricks."
Volutta pushed Uriael out of the room, into the arms of the two guards that had usually taken her to a room full of torture.